Steve Bannon (4:10)

This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. There's not got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen.

Dave (4:31)

And where do people like that go to share the big lie? Maga I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

Steve Bannon (4:41)

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

Bradley Thayer (4:45)

If that answer is to save my.

Steve Bannon (4:47)

Country, this country will be saved.

Dave (4:51)

War Room, here's your host, Stephen K. Banner. All right, everyone, welcome to the war room. This end from the Department of Defense honors fallen heroes on the fourth anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack. I think you all recognize that voice. On this day of remembrance, I hope you will all take a pause, bow your head, say a prayer to God in thankfulness to the great souls, the 13 souls. We lost their physical lives down here, but they serve their country with honor. And so we're very thankful to them and to the pain their families have gone through. We hold them in our memory today. And so, Mo Bannon, no better person to help us in this day of remembrance. Mo, give us your comments on this day.

Mo Bannon (5:51)

Thank you, Dave, for having me. And like you said, we should remember the 13 souls lost, you know, back four years ago. It was a botched withdrawal. And these 13 were murdered at Abbey Gate. And there were at least 20 to 28 wounded on that day four years ago. And they have to live with the injuries they sustained every day for the rest of their lives. And those 13 service members, families have to live with the loss of that service member and not being able to have grandchildren or spend the rest of their lives with their children. And their lives were cut so short. A lot of those service members were 20, 21 years old, some even 19. And they lost out on their future. And I know that President Trump is doing his part in holding the people for those 13 murders accountable. You know, in March, he arrested the ISIS K member known as Jafar, that was responsible for the planning of these attacks. However, why four years later have General Milley and General Austin not been held accountable for their parts and what happened? This was a botched withdrawal. And I know a lot of people say, you know, we were there 20 years, we could have gotten out sooner. And there were four different presidents that could have gotten us out. But it came down to Joe Biden and he did the withdrawal in the worst manner possible. I was part of the withdrawal out of Iraq, and it wasn't perfect, but we had no souls lost during that withdrawal out of Iraq. And it is absolutely disgusting that those responsible for what happened have not been held accountable four years later.

Dave (7:48)

Yeah, Mo, we were chatting a bit about that before you came on and say a little bit more about that. You're on an important board up there now with the military. President Trump, we see there's a lot of turnover going on in DoD under Hegseth and others, State Department. You know, it's too bad that the sharks raised rise to the top in these bureaucracies, how we let that happen, but it was all too familiar. Do you get a sense we're turning the ship around and that we got good, ethical people that are. There are patriots that care about these troops and the, you know, so we don't lose. Trump really seems to emphasize that in all of his talks on the war, he hates seeing the lost young men and women on the battlefield. And I buy it. And so is there room for optimism and hope that we got better people coming in now?

Mo Bannon (8:49)

I think so, Dave. I think that we are turning the ship around. I think President Trump is doing a good job. However, I think that he needs to hold. I think he needs to bring General Mark Milley and General Lloyd Austin back on active duty and court martial them and hold them accountable for what happened on August 26, 2021. I think that with Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, we were doing a great job in turning things around. I think that he is focused on war fighting and not what the last administration was focused on, gender theory, pronoun training. We're actually focusing on getting back to what we should be focused on. God forbid we get into another war, But I think that we are starting to turn the ship around. I think it's going to take time, but I think that President Trump needs to hold those people accountable for what happened in 2021. Because I get withdrawing from Afghanistan. What bothers me to my core is the way it was done. Those 13 service members should still be here today. Those 28 that were wounded should still have all of their limbs, should not having not have to be dealing with wounds physical and invisible for the rest of their lives. We shouldn't also have service members committing suicide every day because of what they went through. That is not okay. We need to show these families that lost service members that we are holding the people responsible accountable. And I think that when President Trump does that, then we will fully turn the ship around. And I also want to address President Trump does do a good job of honoring those service members lost. Joe Biden did not when they had their dignified transfers, when their remains came off the aircraft, in the cases that they were transferred in to the funeral homes, they Joe Biden looked at his watch every time a service member came off the plane. That is completely disrespectful. They deserve better from their commander in chief. So I think that once those leaders, all of them that were responsible for this botched withdrawal are held accountable, we will fully have turned the ship around.

Dave (11:07)

Yep. Very well said. Mo Bannon and Steve Bannon have been doing the call. If we don't get accountability across the board, not only here at Abbey Gate, but with Russia Gate and the coup d' etat, looks like the 2020 election evidence is coming in by the day as well. The CIA, the FBI will lose our country. Right. We will lose this country if we do not hold these people accountable because it will happen all again in short order. And everybody will know there are new rules of the game. But right now we're winning. We're on the offense. Thanks to you and your dad. And so, Mo, thanks for being on today and God bless you and thanks or for bringing your voice to bear for the families and the pain and these great patriots who gave everything for their country. God bless you. Thank you, Mo.

Mo Bannon (11:59)

Thank you for having me on, Dave. And like you said, take a little time today to remember those 13 lost in the those service members families. I've had the honor of getting to know a few of their families over the last four years. So please think about their families today as well.

Dave (12:15)

Man. You got it. Thank you, Mo. See you soon. All right, folks, so we're going to artificial intelligence a little bit different take on things today. We've got Sam Hammond coming on. He's expert on AI in the China race. And so, Sam, welcome on the show and why don't you just tee us up. Everybody knows about the, you know, the economic competition. Later in the show, I'm going to go into a little bit the War between the race to get the alliance right, a rapprochement with Russia hopefully of some sort. India is leaning over to the China camp a little bit right now. So all this matters. What, what are the real trade offs that are most important that you see, it appears China has us, has some leverage on the, on the rare earths and all that. And so when it comes to the AI and the chips, are we making the right choices going forward and what's it look like in the next few years?

Sam Hammond (13:19)

Thanks for having me on, Dave. Yeah. So with AI, the race is on. You know, this, this year so far, data center buildouts has comprised 2% or 2, 2/4 of US GDP. We've been spending more on data centers this year than we have on all consumer spending. So you can see the infrastructure buildout is underway. And this is because ultimately these AI systems require only a handful of inputs. They require the data, the training data, they require the energy and they require the hardware, these data centers, these chips. And on data and energy, China has us beat, or at least a parity rate. They added 400 gigawatts of energy to the grid last year. Ours is flatlined. You know, the Trump administration is making valiant efforts to try to break that gridlock and put more energy on the grid. But fundamentally our advantage comes down to these chips. And the question is who gets them right? Because these systems are going to get increasingly powerful over the coming years. And every chip that we export to China or abroad is essentially exporting a labor. It's exporting a future genius that we could use in our own country.

Dave (14:22)

Yeah, very good. When it comes to this tech race. Also on the show, you know, there's kind of mega world and then there's the Tech Bros. And as an economist, I do not like monopolies. And it appears we got about, you know, the magnificent seven monopolies at a minimum. And there's big everything in the air right now, right? There's big government, big health care, big banking, big Federal Reserve, big green energy, big tech. As an economist, how do you tell us what you're seeing in your crystal ball? Can, can we have a detente and peace between the MAGA and the Tech Bros? Is there a, is there a way of having a conservative, a race with China that serves the American worker?

Sam Hammond (15:12)

I hope so. I mean, there's different pieces of this. You know, if you think about how Google gets so big, it did it by monopolizing ad revenue and sucking up all the revenue that was going to small newspapers and so on. And so forth. And I do worry that AI, especially, you know, artificial general intelligence, this thing that the companies are all racing towards essentially an AI system that could do anything a human can do. You know, once you cross that threshold, you become the everything company and suck up a whole cross section of the, of the U.S. economy. And we need to watch out for that kind of power, concentration, risk. But by the same token, the first country that gets to that point could also have an equally geopolitical scale advantage. And this is where I think some of the lessons of Mega have not fully penetrated with the tech community. You know, we saw during the inauguration all the leading big tech founders in the rotunda with Trump. You know, there was one notable exception, namely Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, the company that has a 90% plus monopoly on the production design of these chips. He was in Beijing and he was in Beijing several more times this year. He was recently interviewed in Beijing and said, you know, I am Chinese and then I became American Chinese. And so he's really been playing both sides of the race in this context. And there's also some risk that China may have leverage over the company. You know, in their most recent 10K, which is an SEC disclosure, they, they note that if they comply with US export controls, in other words, if they follow the law and not sell China these most advanced chips, that they could be subject to retaliation by the Chinese government.

Dave (16:48)

Right, very good, Sam, tell me this one. Economics is, you know, often called the dismal science for good reason. Back during the dot com, probably the most famous economist on productivity, Bob Gordon out at Northwestern University. Right. Not, not a MAGA guy, but everyone around him, well, you know, these cell phones were going to transform productivity and make us all better workers. And he famously, or Robert Solow or a couple of guys said, they said don't you, don't you see technology everywhere? And he said yeah, I see it everywhere except in the data. And so this week at MIT paper came out and it said, you know, 95 of firms have not embedded generative AI yet into their firm behavior. You know, everyday business activities. What, you know, what do you, I, I think AI is way more promising. So I'm not a, I'm not a Luddite, but at the same time it was, it's a pretty fascinating paper outcome. What's your take on that, Sam?

Sam Hammond (17:58)

Yeah, it's very early, right. So these systems sort of cross reliability thresholds and before then sort of like self driving until self driving was safer than humans. But you know, 100x safer than humans. We're not going to get autonomous cars on all the roads and similar in a lot of these other contexts, you know, but what I worry about is, you know, we got over a trillion dollars of capex going out into these data centers. You mentioned the Mag 7. It's, it's really these six or seven companies are driving all the stock market returns over the last year or so. Yeah, we're balancing a huge part of the economy on these systems. And so there has to be a payoff at some point. You know, what I kind of worry about from an economic point of view is once you've crossed over into this threshold of systems that are superior than humans in every possible way, that includes superior in the ability to design better AI systems and you could get this feedback loop where the company that is even a few months in the lead ends up pulling ahead from the rest and sort of like the, like my Google example or like the Amazon Warehouse effect, it becomes the everything thing, the everything company. And then we got a real problem on our hands. You know, I think the, the goal should not just be a pro worker agenda for AI, but also one that distributes power, you know, distributes it to not just workers, but also smaller businesses, little tech.

Dave (19:14)

Right, right.

Sam Hammond (19:15)

So other, other players have a, have a, have a stake in this.

Dave (19:19)

You mean federalism in the free market system? What, what a novel idea. That's, it's good. You're in with Adam Smith and the greats. I think we got a mini cold open for you, Sam Denver. Why don't you roll that and we'll react for a minute.

Steve Bannon (19:35)

First of all, I'm Chinese.

Bradley Thayer (19:37)

And then I became an American Chinese and I happen to be in semiconductors. No, no, no, it's a Crane. He's working, doing his job. And, and, and I'm in AI.

Dave (19:54)

Sam, why don't you give us your reaction to that and give us some closing comments on where we stand with all this.

Sam Hammond (20:02)

Yeah, you know, that was Jensen Wong, CEO of Nvidia. You know, a decade ago Nvidia was known for building the best computer chips for playing video games. Right. And when you're playing video games, you know everything, you know, the world's royster, do whatever you want. But now these chips have become functionally dual use. Right. These same chips are being powered for your, your chat bot, for your AI therapist are also being used to surveil Christian minorities in China to build their, their stuff that they export to autocracies around the world to power their autonomous weapons systems. And he is yet to get to with the program. You saw him there, say I am Chinese. And then I became American Chinese, not Chinese American, mind you. I think, I think that was quite intentional. And it really says something about the dual loyalties or at least the lack of American patriotism that some of these globalized tech companies have yet to incorporate.

Dave (21:01)

Yeah, Sam, thanks for being with us. We got Brad Thayer coming up next and we're going to get into that relationship on these shared values. And you know, I saw you Mason grad and I got a bunch of libertarian friends and I, as Bannon will tell you, I have Chicago libertarian tendencies. But this China thing, the idea that you can trade with a communist totalitarian system that doesn't use the price system right, I mean, it's, it's hard, I know. Trade, yeah, but it ain't free trade. And so I'll get you back next on that one. And thanks for being with us, Sam. Great job.

Sam Hammond (21:40)

Thank you.

Dave (21:42)

You bet. You bet. All right. Hey, folks, I'm going to give some thanks to our, one of our great sponsors, Birch Gold. Is the continued divide between Trump and the Federal Reserve putting us behind the curve again? Can the Fed take the right action at this time or are we going to go looking at a potential economic slowdown? And what does this mean for your savings? Consider diversifying with gold through Birchgold Group. For decades, gold has been viewed as a safe haven in times of economic stagnation, global uncertainty and high inflation. And Birch Gold makes it incredibly easy for you to diversify some of your savings into gold. If you have an IRA or an old 401k, you can convert that into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold or just buy some gold to keep in your safe. First, get educated. Birchgold will send you a free info kit on gold. Just text Bannon to the number 989-898. Again, text Bannon to 989-898. Consider diversifying a portion of your savings into gold. That way if the Fed can't stay ahead of the curve for the country, at least you can stay ahead for yourself. And so special thanks Birchgold. Great team over there. They support Steve and the show and so please support them. All right, folks, we got Bradley Thayer coming up, but we got a few minutes left in this, in this black Bradley. And so Brad, are you there? There he is. Hey, Brett, why don't you. What you just heard the AI and the China piece and there's interesting news in the last few weeks. India, you know, feels aggrieved over the tariffs and they're making noise. They don't want to acknowledge the, the tough love part. Right. They got a trade deficit problem. They have a tariff and non tariff barrier problem with us. They've got oil problems subsidizing Russia with us. And they say we're, you know, we're not being good friends and whatever. And then if you're that way to us, we're going to go with China and so catch us up on this and you know, Russia, what, what's going on there? You know, Steve's always calling for a reproach. MA we don't, we don't trust Putin, but it's much better to have him on our side than on China's side. So get us up to speed, Bradley, and thanks for being with us.

Bradley Thayer (24:10)

No, Dave, great to join you and thanks to Steve in the earlier show and then for you having Mo on to remember the 13 Gold Star families and those who are lost in the withdrawal, Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Happy to. Dave, there's really, if you have, if you recognize there's a kind of a triangular relationship going on between Russia, India and China with the United States playing, if you will, the meta role, obviously, because the US Is still the dominant power in international politics and that we have the most military power in international politics. And that's the coin of the realm when we're looking at that. So a couple of points to begin, Dave. First, tomorrow, August 27, tariffs are going to be imposed on India. There are some important exceptions to those tariffs, but they're basically going to be 25% to 50% tariffs on Indian exports into the US that's going to hurt the Indian economy greatly. And about 1/5, almost 1/5 of Indian exports go to the US so you can see there's going to be a blow that the Indians are going to incur. And so that has upset Modi with the US But I think that's just a hiccup in the relationship, Dave, and I'll explain why. Even though there's been secondly a relaxation in tensions between China and India, there are still really deep, profound problems and intense security competition between China and India. And that's not going away anytime soon. So India still wants to have a good security relationship with the United States despite the tariffs issue. And that's because China is a major threat, the major military threat to India. And we want to keep in mind that China also backs Pakistan and Pakistan and India. If you remember, Dave, in April and May of this year had a clash, a pretty sharp clash which President Trump de escalated which had he not, it might have escalated into a conventional war or heaven forbid, a nuclear exchange between those countries. So China is the threat to India directly as well as to its proxy Pakistan.

Dave (26:47)

Bradley, let me stop you right there. We're going to come back to you. Great analysis. Those last points were very significant. Stay tuned for Bradley Thayer in the War Room.

Steve Bannon (27:01)

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Dave (31:08)

America's Voice Family Are you on Getter yet?

Bradley Thayer (31:11)

No. What are you waiting for?

Dave (31:12)

It's free, it's uncensored, and it's where all the biggest voices in conservative media are speaking out.

Steve Bannon (31:19)

Download the Getter app right now. It's totally free. It's where I put up exclusively all of my content 24 hours a day. Want to know what Steve Bannon is thinking?

Dave (31:27)

Go together.

Bradley Thayer (31:28)

That's right.

Dave (31:28)

You can follow all of your favorites, Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobe, and so many more. Download the Getter app now. Sign up for free and be part.

Steve Bannon (31:37)

Of the new thing.

Dave (31:40)

All right, folks, get out there to get her. That's the that's the place to track the great mind of Stephen K. Bannon. And Brat Economics is out there as well on Getter. We want to thank another one of our great friends. What if you had the brightest mind in The War Room delivering critical financial research every month. War Room listeners know Jim Rickards as our wise man. A former CIA, Pentagon and White House advisor with unmatched grasp of geopolitics and capital markets, Jim predicted Trump's Electoral college victory exactly 312 to 226. Now he's issuing a dire warning about 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 speed, algorithm driven crashes, and even threats to national security. Right now, War Room members get a free copy of Money GPT when they sign up for Strategic Intelligence, Jim's flagship financial newsletter, Time's running out. Go to rickardswarroom.com now and claim your free book. That's Rickards war room dot com. Please support Jim. He does a great job on the War Room and we're always indebted to have them. I'm gonna go through a few charts real quick. None of these are going to be perfect, but they're going to lay a foundation. I'm going to get to a story coming up from Zero Hedge, Europe's new war economy, from green collapse to military Keynesianism. And Bradley Thayer is coming right up after these charts. I wanted to show these because they, they have something to say about China's economy too, right? The European economies, as you'll see in these charts, are very slow growing. You know, you can lie with a. Statistics lie and charts lie. I tried to be very fair in the next few charts just to give an overview, but roughly speaking, this Keynesianism, you know, it's, it's a solution for every economic crisis. The condensed version would go something like this. Nearly every recession stems from a demand shortfall by consumers. The state's job, therefore, is to create artificial credit to fill this demand gap. Think of the US in 08. Lower interest rates, print credit. So the fairy tale goes, the economy takes off. In reality, what remains is a mountain of state debt, a swelling bureaucracy, distorted financial markets and declining productivity. And that's what I want to highlight in these next few charts. The demand side of Keynesianism versus the supply side of the, of the War Room and President Trump. So, you know, here's UK economy forecasts for 2023 and 2024. You look up at the top. UK is forecast to shrink in 2023. German growth, anemic. Russia, middling There, stronger than the Euros. Italy, small growth. France, low growth. The US a bit better. Canada, okay, there's. And China growing. And that's I'm going to get with Thayer on this next chart. Denver. Just real quick, you know, here's India up at the top, OECD. Those are the rich countries. Economic growth, GDP forecast for 2024, India, Indonesia, China, Turkey. And then down at the bottom, you see again the, the Europeans, France, Italy, Japan, UK Germany with zero growth. They've made all the wrong decisions. They went green. They went all green. And the polling data in Germany, the people are still happy. Two thirds of Germans still saying we're happy with this green stuff. And the Germans are known for human reason and rationality. And how they let that happen, I have no idea. And now they're going to go from that green economy to a war economy. And so the US we got to be very careful too in our interpretation of what's going on with our economy. President Trump is doing everything right. The tariffs, he's realigning geopolitics, he's getting capital investment on the supply side, which causes economic growth. But that takes a year, year and a half. So we're very much still in a Biden economy. We're living off his lag. And let me show you what that looks like. That next chart, Denver. You know, this is from Bob Gordon I mentioned. He's the guru on long run productivity. Here's one of his charts, shows the last 70 years. Look to the far left. Labor productivity growth is in the dark green. And then real hourly wages go right along with it with a productivity. Right. So you want to know why wages are down? It's because productivity's down. So it used to be 4, 5, 6%. And then in the middle of the chart, you know, 20, 30 years ago is at 3 or 4%. And now we're at 2%. The long run term is 2%. And Trump's got to dig our way out of that trend. The next chart, Denver. I'm just putting all this up. This is out there at Brad Economics on Getter. But that last number on the far right, 1.7%, is the forecast from our government statistics, the long run, you know, macroeconomic models for the next 30 years. And this wasn't, you know, one off from a Biden, you know, report or whatever. This has been the long range forecast zooming in at 2%. And so we have a lot, a lot of work to get out of that mess that's been left by the Keynesian economists who run the Federal Reserve and our U.S. government. Last couple of charts, Denver. Next one, why are we in this position? You Just heard an economist on AI and the debt, right there's our debt position, 37 trillion and we're adding another 20 trillion if you listen to CBO over the next 10 years. So we'll be at about 60 trillion. That's wasted resources. President Trump as a business guy is horrified by wasting resources. We have a $7 trillion government budget, $2 trillion of that are deficit financed. We're ripping off the kids, we're spending their money on green stuff and the kids are going to have to pay it back. And so the debt is a major cause of inefficiency, low productivity. We got to shove that back into the private sector. Last chart or two, Denver, that just shows since 18, all the net new jobs went to foreign born workers. Trump has already turned that around on a dime. So that's some good news coming at your last chart. I think Denver might have one more. I just want to go to Bradley Thayer now and ask him for his, you know, crystal ball on China. China is very similar to Europe, right? They, they have a demographic problem, they've got a resource allocation problem with ghost cities. But boy are they, they're smart, they're clever, they can move money. They steal from their workers and shove it into capital. They have military bases all over the world. Billions and billions of billions. And I don't think that can last for too much longer. But Bradley, a lot hinges on our answer to that question. How productive do you think the Chinese economy still is? They're saying 5% growth still. I don't buy it. But what's your analysis showing?

Bradley Thayer (39:23)

Well, Dave, when the Chinese talk about their own economy, they're communists, right. So they're going to lie. And you want to remember the Mary McCarthy rule when she dismissed Lillian Hellman. Right. Every word that she wrote was a lie, including and, and the.

Dave (39:37)

Right.

Bradley Thayer (39:38)

So every word that the Chinese say about their economy is a lie, including and, and the. You want to keep in mind that we're talking about these numbers, they're going to be manufactured and that, that the Chinese being ruled by a Communist party, of course, are doing their utmost to inflate them and to convey to the world as well as to the Chinese people that everything is okay, when in fact everything is not okay. And it's not okay because structurally they're ruled by a Communist party. So Communists have never been able to effectively run an economy anywhere. Just reverse. They run it into the ground. We always want to keep that in mind. In addition, there are other profound problems that they have in their real estate market. They have still profound corruption. They have profound problems in their banking, obviously, and finance, and then, of course, in exports as well. So the Chinese are in. And the PRC is in economic doldrums, and they're not getting out of it anytime soon. So next week, when Modi, for example, is going to be in China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, very important summit. Putin will be there as well. Xi Jinping is going to do his utmost to hype the relationship that he has with India and the relationship that he has with Russia and the rest of the world. But in fact, that's grossly inflated and particularly with Modi. Right. Who, again, as we were talking about earlier, has the profound problems, security problems, and intense security competition with the People's Republic of China. The greatest threat to New Delhi is Beijing and Xi Jinping's rule. And Modi knows that when he pays his first visit in seven years to the prc. And it's still fresh in Indian minds, the clashes that they had in 2021, the border clashes between the PRC and India. So the Chinese economies and the doldrums, Xi Jinping does not have an answer to it. So much depends, of course, on what President Trump chooses to do with the tariffs that he might impose on China. Greater levels of tariffs, of course. And so we'll have to see with respect to that. But there's no escape, really, for the Chinese economy. At the same time, that doesn't keep them from spending money on defense. Right. They've announced this year they're further increasing defense spending. Defense spending. And we've seen tremendous growth, what leaders of Strategic Command have termed breathtaking expansions in their nuclear capabilities as well as their conventional capabilities, as well as their aggression in the South China Sea against the Philippines that we're witnessing almost on a daily basis. So the regime is in trouble. And that obviously is a cause of great concern in Taiwan, among our allies in Japan and the Philippines, and, of course, for the Trump administration.

Dave (43:04)

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. You know, the Chinese and the. The South China Sea, they draw these dashes around what they say is their own right to the waterway. And it's basically all of it. There's no buffer. It's supposed to be 200 miles off the coast or whatever. There's no buffer for Japan or for the Philippines or any of the neighboring countries. They have no rights to the waterway at all, given the Chinese lines that they've drawn. And then, you know, the Chinese are building up a fairly significant blue water navy. There's News clips of them driving our, you know, our boats or our Allied boats, you know, off with water cannon that are just shocking. And then they have the equivalent of aircraft carriers on all those islands in the middle of the South China Sea where they're making claims. And the tens of billions. I don't know where they're. That's what the problem is. I cannot figure it out because it looks like the Belt and Road has taken a hit. But they are still embedding billions throughout Africa and strategic, you know, friendships with other countries. They're not friendly. Their tone is never friendly. It's just strategic. But, you know, what's your best guess as to are they running? Do you see the Belt and Road Initiative losing steam? Can you see that in a relative sense from your analysis?

Bradley Thayer (44:29)

Yeah, it already has. I think that we want to keep in mind when we're thinking about Communist China, we want to keep in mind that Xi Jinping has priorities. His priority is first, his own survival and his continuation of his rule. Secondly, the rule of the Party has to continue. That's absolutely essential. Then thirdly, there are going to be maybe desirable goals like continued. There's. The military has to be, of course, supported and the security services have to be supported and we move beyond that. There are going to be desirable goals, perhaps like prosperity or resources that they can devote to other countries. But the Belt and Road Initiative, of course, is dependent upon not only the economic element, Dave, but also the strategic element. So the Belt and Road Initiative advances China's, the PRC strategic goals as well as, of course, their economic partially. But the economic is definitely secondary to the idea of gaining influence in countries around the world, from Africa to Polynesia, for example, Europe, South America, et cetera. But nothing is going to stop their aggression. Right. I think we want to keep that in mind that we're dealing with this hyper aggressive state. And as long as Xi Jinping is in control of it and the Party is in control, we're going to see that next week. They're going to have a major military parade on September 3rd, the day after the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. And that military parade is significant for a couple of reasons. First, it's an important signal about China's, the PRC's military capabilities, right? What the PRC has and what it's developing. And that's a warning to the U.S. taiwan, the Philippines and India as well. The parade also is there to shore up his rule, right, to show that he's in charge. Xi Jinping is in charge. Of this major military force. And it's to convey to the Chinese people that the party is still is in control and Xi Jinping, despite a bunch of rumors, is still in control of the prc. So next week is going to be a very important week, Dave, with respect to first the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, then the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the surrender document signed on the deck of the Missouri, and then of course Xi Jinping's military parade, which is a political weapon. He's using that to convey a message to the rest of the world and to the Chinese people. So a very important week from the standpoint of geopolitics. It's important to note also finally, Dave, that Modi will not be at that parade, but Vladimir Putin will be at the military parade in Beijing next week.

Dave (47:42)

Yeah, I was using this article from Zero Hedge, just outstanding article. Everyone ought to look it up. Europe's new war economy from green collapse to military Keynesianism when I linked it to the growth, the growth stats of Europe are all down in the doldrums as you're saying, where I would think China's would be as well. And then they conclude the article having failed with the green deal, Europe's politicians are now trying a new pseudo economy, a debt fueled military industrial complex. According to a study by Ernst and Young, Germany's Dax companies cut 30,000 jobs 1H25, except for defense contractors which went up by about 17%. The EU's plan by 2035 the EU Europe European plan by 2035, half of European defense goods from artillery, cyber defense, precision munitions will be produced within their block, creating 6,60,000 jobs. But of course there's no sector that produces further away from the real consumer demand than the arms industry. Right. And this is what I don't get about China either. It's so distorted, right. This, the, the. I'll close with everybody. This is Keynesian pseudo economics in its most extreme form. Buying time with debt. And I'm bringing this up as a warning shot to United States here too, right? Buying time with debt while starving the private capital markets on this defense strategy. Now so they're going from the green to defense. UK and France are making more war noises than anybody over there, but they're going broke doing it. And so how do you read it going forward, Bradley, over the next few years, how does this play out with us, Russia, Europe, China, India?

Bradley Thayer (49:37)

Well, we're going to see, of course Dave is going to be much more security competition in that relationship. But President Trump is doing his utmost to ensure that the focus, the major security concern that the US has is the Chinese Communist Party. Right. Xi Jinping's rule of the CCP and in the People's Republic of China. So President Trump is doing his utmost to end the war in Ukraine, which is absolutely essential so that you can have a greatly improved relationship with Russia. With a greatly improved relationship in Russia, you then can enlist, to a degree, Russian help in dealing with the threat from the prc. That's giving the PRC a northern flank. Right. We always want the PRC to have a multiple war front problem, multiple fronts that they have to address because their relationship with Russia has been very good during the war. With Russia's war with Ukraine, that front has disappeared. President Trump wants to reinstore that and to ensure that the US And Russia working together within certainly boundaries. Putin is a wily fellow, of course, we want to always recognize that. And Russia will probably never be an ally of the US Again, but it may be a great partner in dealing with our mutual threat, and that is the prc. So there's hope, obviously for much improved relationship with Russia and then with India as well, similarly threatened by the prc. And the hiccup of the tariffs are going to be attenuated. Dave, you know, markets adjust, right? So the market will adjust and India and the US can get over the trouble of the tariffs to deal with the mutual threat that they face. So there can be. There's the great potential that President Trump can achieve and I think will achieve of a great security relation, greatly improved security relationship with Russia. Of course, India already is a partner in the quad.

Dave (51:53)

Yeah.

Bradley Thayer (51:54)

And that relationship will continue and deepen. And then other allies that we have, like Japan, for example.

Dave (52:01)

Bradley Thayer, thank you so much. Bradley. Thanks for putting on a clinic today in the War Room. Everybody spread the good word.

Steve Bannon (52:09)

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