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Bannon`s War Room
WarRoom Special: Sea Power And Freedom Prelude
WarRoom Special: Sea Power And Freedom Prelude...
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- [00:54]
Steve Bannon
Eternal Father, grant me pray to all.
- [01:04]
Captain Jim Fennell
Glory.
- [01:06]
Steve Bannon
Night and day.
- [01:11]
Cleo Pascal
The courage.
- [02:10]
Announcer
For 250 years, America's Navy has guarded freedom, projected strength and carried the fight across the sea. Now, from Norfolk, Virginia, history meets destiny.
- [02:23]
Cleo Pascal
They fight, fight, fight, and they win, win, win.
- [02:29]
Announcer
President Donald J. Trump joins America's warriors aboard a mighty aircraft carrier as we celebrate two and a half centuries of sea power. Explosive demonstrations, military might, unstoppable strength, Navy 250, sea power and freedom with your host, Steve Bannon with live reporting from Jack Posobic and Steve Gruber starts right now.
- [03:05]
Steve Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. I got a free shot. 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.
- [03:25]
Michael Pack
You'Re not going to stop it.
- [03:26]
Steve Bannon
It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big L MAGA media.
- [03:32]
Alex De Grasse
I wish in my soul, I wish.
- [03:34]
Michael Pack
That any of these people had a conscience.
- [03:37]
Steve Bannon
Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my.
- [03:43]
Cleo Pascal
Country, this country will be saved.
- [03:47]
Announcer
War room here's your host, Stephen k. Band.
- [03:57]
Steve Bannon
Sunday, the 5th of October in the year of our Lord 2025. Welcome for our all day coverage of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States Navy. President Trump was able to carve this out of the schedule. We're going to have a quite a show today, a actual live fire naval exercise that the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, will actually witness live in a carrier strike group. Our own Jack Posobec, a naval intelligence officer, will be with the President. He'll be leaving Andrews Air Force Base in the next couple of hours to go to Norfolk, Virginia. And of course, Steve Gruber, the great Steve Gruber, actually be out on one of the combatants during the day and we're going to have a host of analysts, strategists, people that know the United States Navy backwards and forwards. We're going to try to frame today the United States Navy, just not the history of it, the glorious history of it, but also where we are today. And kind of quo vadis, whither thou goest on the greatest navy in mankind's history. Want to thank real America's voice, Parker and Rob Sig. The logistics of this have been pretty daunting. Also want to thank the White House. I think we're going to get some. Since we're doing this all day, as we did with Charlie Kirk on the great memorial for Charlie Kirk and we did at Kennedy center for the prayer vigil, we've done over and over again, we're going to get some, I think, special insights and maybe even a little access to special footage. So stick around. It's going to be a Incredible, incredible day. Six months. Lexington Concord was what, April of 1775, and then Bunker Hill followed shortly thereafter. Mid June, what, 17 June of 1775. The Founding Fathers were pretty smart. They knew they were at war right then. Didn't take the Declaration of Independence or kind of the War Proclamation that would come later. It's a traditional birthday of the American, of the American Republic. They knew war was coming. They knew they were already in a fight. And so they established the United States Army. And on the 13th of October of 1775, the Continental Congress, who didn't have a lot of ability to raise revenue, knew they needed something to stand up to the, to the Royal Navy. My two co hosts throughout the day, Captain Jim Fennell and Cleo Pascal, they're going to, they're going to be joining me and I'm also going to have many, many other people during the day. Cleo, I want to start with you. You're a senior columnist over at the Sunday Guardian. You spent so much time for us explaining really, naval strategy and the importance of the Pacific in that strategy. Give us your sense of how important today is. And I think President Trump, in highlighting to the American people the importance of the power and might of the United.
- [06:54]
Cleo Pascal
States Navy, it's incredibly important. It's an exciting day. I'm so glad you're covering it. And with Captain Finnell on top of it, it's worth remembering that during the 19th century, it was Britain who ruled the waves. But after World War II, it was definitely America. And if you look at that whole series of presidents between 1961 and 1981, they all served in the Navy in one capacity or another. Then you had Reagan, who, you know, through no fault of his own, served in the army, and then you're back to Navy. So the whole making of modern America was made under naval presidents, and they understood the value of the Navy, of that hard power, not just speaking softly, and how the Pacific was really central to American security and prosperity. So the fact that this is being done and celebrated in the way it is is truly showing what the heart of American economics, economic, political, and I'd have to say moral leadership has been because although it conquered most of the Pacific after World War II, it didn't stay. It moved back. The US came back to itself. It created relationships, key relationships with allies and partners in the region. But it wasn't a colonizing power. So this is a new kind of navy, not the British navy of the 19th century. This is a navy that really wants peace and growth through strength without the sort of dominance and control that you had previously seen.
- [08:32]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, we're going to have a lot of conversation about today, shipbuilding, the cost of it, all of that, as we as President Trump highlights the striking power of the United States Navy. I think the, the live fire exercise off the Virginia Capes today will be pretty awe inspiring for people, but it comes at a cost and you have to have tradeoffs. We're going to be talking about hemispheric defense also throughout the day. To add to the drama of this, President Trump is negotiating peace in the Middle East. And so he still got his deadline, although he has negotiators over in Egypt right now at the Red Sea, over at the resort at the Red Sea negotiators. I think he's still the 6 o' clock deadline still there. So we're going to have updates throughout the day. Captain Fanon, I might add, Captain Fanell is a legendary figure, a revered figure among all naval officers for his truth to his insights and his truth telling. Captain Fennell, I know you just had a great piece up. I think it was an American greatness on sea power, current sea power. But put in perspective the importance of the United States Navy and the arc of American history. The Founding Fathers who were in the Revolutionary generation were pretty smart. They realized they were in a gunfight already in 1775. Yes, the Declaration of Independence came and people all celebrate that as the beginning of the country. But I always argue the country really started at Lexington Common in a Concord Bridge and after Bunker Hill, they knew they were in a gunfight. That's where they needed an army and they certainly needed a Navy, sir.
- [10:06]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, first of all, Steve, thanks for having me on. It's, it's a privilege and honor to be with you. Cleo and the war room posse. This is a very great day to remember the history of our Navy and the fact that the United States of America isn't just a single land power, but we're also a maritime power. And we're probably the first great power in the history of the world to balance land power and naval power throughout our history. And as you pointed out. When the Revolutionary War started and we started this nation, we had to get rid of the British redcoats off of our land. But our founders understood the importance of sea power and it grew throughout our 250 years. We can go back and look at Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet at the turn of the 20th century and then we can certainly look at what happened.
- [11:01]
Jason Redmond
In World War II with the growth.
- [11:02]
Captain Jim Fennell
Of the Two Ocean Navy act that helped us win World War II in the Atlantic and the Pacific. So this is a really tremendous day. It's a day that we should remember that we are a naval power and a ground power. Today we'll focus on the maritime.
- [11:20]
Steve Bannon
We're going to go through it throughout the day. In fact, one of the interesting things of history, the live fire exercise will be on the gunfire range off of Norfolk, the Norfolk Naval base, which is I still think the largest naval base in the world and the town I was born right outside of Norfolk. Navy the Norfolk Navy base in Ocean View, Virginia, off of the Virginia Capes. We're going to have the live naval exercise is the key naval battle of the Revolutionary War where the French Navy came to cut off course Cornwallis and the expeditionary force of the of the British army and therefore technically, I guess basically ended the American Revolution. Alex de Grasse is going to join us. His relatives were very directly involved in that and he'll explain everything about the Battle of the Virginia Capes. We're going to have history, strategy, operations and a couple of hours, I think I hope of good old fashioned Navy power from our, from our naval, the naval air assets, the surface assets, the carrier submarines, all of it. And the commander in chief overseeing it from a carrier strike group. Stick around. You're in the war room. Real America's Voice coverage all day of the 250th Navy 250 in the naval operation that President Trump will oversea. Take a short break. Be back in a moment.
- [13:02]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsors Birch Gold Group, Patriot Mobile and AMEX for standing with RAV. Welcome back to Navy 250 Sea Power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor AMAC for standing with RAV.
- [13:36]
Steve Bannon
Okay, welcome back. I've got Jim Burkers who's going to join us here in a moment because we're going to get a lot of geopolitics in here, a lot of strategy because you have to kind of set the framework. Particularly folks, if you obviously you follow the War room. One of the most fundamental pivots that we're going through under America first, because we're not isolationists, there is an isolationist wing, there's no doubt about that in the America first movement. And we cherish those folks. President Trump's not an isolationist. He's engaged throughout the world. He's trying to bring two wars, two bloody wars to an end right now, one in the Middle east and one in the Bloodlands in Ukraine. Also, at the same time, trying to stare down the Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea and Taiwan. But for the first time Since World War II, there is, and I would say actually since our rise to power in the Spanish American War as a global power, there is now a kind of a pivot back to what would be hemispheric defense. And we are trying to, here at the war room, make sure that we're defining hemispheric defense appropriately. And this is why Cleo and her work in the Pacific has been so vitally important. We're going to get into that. Captain Fernand, I want to go to you about, really, in the history of the Navy, you had the Revolutionary War, which were, we're essentially a group of freebooters, I would guess. You had John Paul Jones and, you know, Commander Woodberry, you had, we really weren't an organized Navy in 1812. We played a much bigger, we play a big role in the Revolution, don't get me wrong, but more of a decisive role in 1812, obviously a very decisive part of the Civil War. That's never really been, I don't think, that well documented how important the Navy was in the Civil War, and particularly keeping us out of war with Great Britain during the Civil War, which a lot of people in the Confederacy were pushing for. But then really, it's the Spanish American War. And I want to tie this to, you know, President Trump as much as he relates to Andrew Jackson and other populists. Right. And Reagan. He is very fond of McKinley because of McKinley's global view, and particularly on terrorists, but also McKinley in the Spanish American War, the late 19th century, those young men that had been on the battlefield of the Civil War when they actually came to actually guide the country in the Spanish American War, we really became a global power and the beginning of a true naval power globally. And for the rest of our time, really the United States Navy, as much or maybe even more than the army, has defined American geopolitics. And now we find ourselves in the 21st century at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century at a fundamental crossroads of the American Empire and the expansion of the American empire. And what's really going to happen? What can we afford? What's right? And this is a debate that's going on and it's centered on the United States. A lot of it's centered around the role in place and strategic necessity of the United States Navy. And even in that, what that Navy will look like is the 12 or 13 carrier battle group strategy of force projection, something that's from ancient times and with drones and artificial intelligence. And we are going to have people on later in the day to talk about drone warfare, to talk about artificial intelligence and how it's changing naval warfare. Just your thoughts on the United States Navy's kind of. Because Manifest Destiny, I think the brilliance of that generation that was the late 19th century, manifest destiny did not end at the shoreline of the Pacific. They viewed us as a continental power, but a continental power that projected all the way to the three island chains in the Pacific and really to open Japan and then China. They saw us as a global power. Right. It's the whole reason that we fought the Spanish American War. Your thoughts are?
- [17:36]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yes, Steve, there's no question that the Spanish American War was kind of the beginning of our global naval operations in a serious way. And from that time it continued, as I mentioned before, the Great White Fleet. But that foray into the Far east and the constant presence that we had there and the ability to project our power and achieve our national objectives of that time that blossomed under under the 20th century in the foundations of what came out of World War II, where for the last 80 years we have been the global naval power. We've been the top Navy. As I, you know, when I entered the Navy in 1986 and got commissioned, we had almost 600 warships. We were by far the largest navy. You know, we were certainly at the end of World War II, but we sustained that throughout the Cold War. And what we've seen over the last four decades essentially is a drawdown where we've cut the Navy in half, while at the same time this peer competitor called the People's Republic of China has now got the largest navy in terms of numbers of ships, numbers of anti ship cruise missiles at sea that are vital for victory at sea and war at sea. And they're also fielding now these new unmanned vehicles, like extra large unmanned undersea vehicles that they're testing off of Hainan island or unmanned surface vehicles that they unveiled this week, a trimaran that's going to be part of what they call their kill web. So we're now at this point where we kind of neglected and ignored the Navy component of our national security structure, not in terms of dollars spent and numbers of ships, in terms of carriers and things of that nature, but our overall strategy of making sure that we stayed ahead of pure competitors. We've kind of let that atrophy for a number of reasons. And now the question is, what are we going to do about it? As you suggested just now, is what's the path forward and how are we going to get there? And this step today, where the President of the United States is going to see onboard an active carrier I don't think has been done since President Bush went aboard and, you know, declared victory in the Iraq war. It's been a long time. And that was an actual shooting war. Here we are this time in essentially a war against the Chinese, a cold war, and our president's going to sea, and he's saying this is important. And the speech that he gave last week in Quantico, he also talked about victory at sea and the fact that we need to be victorious at sea. And that's something that our Navy leadership, you know, they talk about, they fund in certain aspects. But we really haven't been thinking about having victory at sea in the same way that we watched soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan when they were getting blown up by IEDs on their Humvees were being overturned and people were being killed. We didn't retreat into our garrisons and say, oh, well, IEDs are killing us. Let's not go outside of the base. No, we figured out a way to up armor our Humvees, put Kevlar on our people, and. And we took the flight to the bad guys in the desert arena, but in the naval arena. We've been afraid essentially of Chinese missile systems, whether it's a DF21D or the DF26, or now these new hypersonic missiles like the DF17. And we had a mentality that says, well, we can't operate inside those weapons envelopes, so we're going to have to continually move to the east. And I think what I heard the president say last week was, no, we need to be able to operate inside those weapon envelopes, take the hit and keep fighting. And that's the spirit and attitude that I really like to see. And I hope it infuses a. It lights a storm inside the Pentagon.
- [21:25]
Steve Bannon
I think President Trump looks at this not as Bush's mission accomplished. I think he looks at this as his Teddy Roosevelt moment, which he does relate to. Teddy Roosevelt, particularly. Teddy Roosevelt was welded to American naval power. The Great White Fleet Review. I think the Great White Fleet Review under Roosevelt actually took place in Norfolk, if I remember correctly. It went all over the world. But I think actually the President went down and reviewed it at. Because Norfolk, the Navy base at Norfolk since the Civil War has been the principal naval base of the United States Navy. And I know the. Although Captain Fennell and I are Pacific Fleet sailors, it is the largest and I think most complicated naval base in the world. You've got the Little Creek Amphibious Base right there. You got Oceana Naval Air Station. It is quite a compound there in Virginia beach and Norfolk. Real quick, before I go back to CLIO and to bring Jim Rickens the conversation, you hit on a point. I want people to understand we've had this moment kind of before. When I came off sea duty in the late 19. In 1980, I got back to D.C. as I told people right before the inauguration of President Reagan, went to work as a junior officer for the Chief of Naval Operations OP090X, which kind of ran the board of directors of the Navy, the flag officers. Admiral Staser Holcomb was my direct boss. And then of course, the Great Hayward, who was a Navy fighter pilot, was the Chief of Naval Operations at that time. We came off, Jim, and the first thing that struck us and we could see this under Carter and was one of the reasons, even as a junior officer in the workup we had left, we had rotated back right before the strike to get the hostages out. But you could tell it was, you know, you didn't have the capacity, the lift capacity. I mean, there was a lot of complication, different helicopters, different systems. It was, it was. We tried to do the best we could, people in the workup to it every day, but you saw where the problems are going to be. Also the Navy, I think, had gotten under, I think around 200 capital ships, right? Actual function. I think maybe the Overall number is 250, but I think the real number was 200. One of Reagan's first things in his. Because remember, Reagan was different than Kissinger, different than Nixon. Different, all of them different. This wasn't about containment. They were coming off the George F. Kennan containment strategy. What he wanted was victory against the evil empire. One way they knew they could do it was to bury the Soviets under our technology and particularly our naval power. And he committed immediately to build a 600 ship Navy immediately. It was one of the biggest things in the defense budget that shook up people back then, right. They were kind of shocked. How do we afford it? What are we going to do with this navy? But it was absolutely essential. Just the building of that was essential. It put the Soviets back on their back foot. They really never could comprehend how they would compete with really a navy that had 600 warships. Give me a minute on that before we go to break. Captain Fanell.
- [24:32]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yeah, it's a vitally important history, Steve. At that time, as you were in making that transition to the Pentagon, the Soviet Navy was the biggest navy in the world and they were operating globally in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific. They had, you know, Yankee ballistic missile submarines operating off of our east and West coast within two or 300 miles, putting our capital at risk within minutes from a ballistic missile attack. They were operating in Cuba. They were everywhere. And what President Reagan, as you rightly said, it was a we win, you die kind of mindset for him compared to the containment strategy that had gone.
- [25:12]
Steve Bannon
On before in the Cold War.
- [25:13]
Captain Jim Fennell
And he unleashed something.
- [25:15]
Steve Bannon
Hang on one sec.
- [25:16]
Captain Jim Fennell
Change the balance of power.
- [25:17]
Steve Bannon
Yeah. Hangar. We're going to come right back to that. We got Jim Rickards is joining us for Geopolitics. Captain Fennell's with us on all things Navy. Cleopascal. We're going to be joined by others, I might also add, Captain Fennell. They were in the North Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. They had a fleet, they had a of sort small armada monitoring our every move. The Russian Navy was everywhere. President Reagan took it on. We're taking a short commercial break. We'll be back in the warm in just a moment.
- [26:00]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with Rav. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Birch Gold Group for standing with rav.
- [26:30]
Steve Bannon
Okay, I want to thank I get my co host Captain Jim Fennell that joins us, one of the most brilliant men I've ever met about the United States Navy, its history and its firepower and the geopolitics of all of it, Cleo Pascal. As you know, Cleo has kind of taken the lead on really what is the strategic heartland of this country, the importance of the Pacific and the geopolitics of defense of the homeland or hemispheric defense as we talk about it. We're going to get into all that in detail today. Jim Rickards joins us. Michael Pack, the great filmmaker Michael And I have made two films. Michael directed, I executive produced two films about the Navy. Number one was the last 600 meters, which I guess was Marine Corps and Army had a part of it. Mo will feel good about that. But he also directed a brilliant film, Rickover. We made the film, the only film about Admiral Rickover. I think that's kind of a non documentary with Tim Blake Nelson playing Admiral Rickover. It's absolutely magnificent and a hidden gem. Jim Rickards, you're my guy on geopolitics, capital markets. We're here at an inflection point in the 21st century. I might also add when you talk about the last time this happened. Bush went after Mission Accomplished. President Trump is coming out today to a carrier for a carrier strike group or a carry battle group, as I still call it, to watch a gunfire naval exercise with missiles, guns, you know, jets, helicopters, all of it, submarines, all the assets the Navy brings together, maybe have a demo. I think we got two. As Monica Crowley speaks today, Ambassador Crowley is going to be one of the early speakers, a couple of Navy SEALs. And we are going to have Erik Prince and Taj Gill, two Navy SEALs join us in the 12 day war, I think, and I'm not saying this because I'm a Navy guy, but I continue to argue the most destructive capability of the total obliteration at the 12 Day War. And God bless our air assets coming out of Nebraska and delivered that decisive blow to the Iranian or the Persian nuclear power program. But the good old United States Navy and I think fast attack submarines delivered three 30 Tomahawk missiles that took down at least 40% of the capacity that was out there that the Israeli Air Force was unable to take out. These were kind of surface facilities. And so I think the Navy still proves that it's got striking power everywhere in the world. What are the geopolitics of this, Jim? How big a day is this? How important and President Trump really coming out. And like you said, hey, I know sailors are not supposed to know how to march. I'm not, I'm not looking for him to march. Let's go out and let's light things up. Let's have a naval gunfire exercise, sir.
- [29:18]
Jim Rickards
That's right, Steve. By the way, for the benefit of the audience, I'm coming to you from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is the home of John Paul Jones. Jones House is just a few blocks away from where I'm sitting right now. Some of my neighbors have flags up front. You know, don't give up the ship. But in the other Direction is Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the oldest naval shipyard in the country, established in 1800. And there are three nuclear powered attack submarines sitting there right now a couple hundred yards from where I'm sitting. My wife once asked me, you know, a couple of years ago in Putin, and they were saber rattling. She said, you think the Russians will fire nuclear missiles at us? And I said, we are very high on the list. I can, I can assure you that. But to your point, Steve, what I'd like to do, I'd like to go up to around 61,000ft. That's my personal best. And talk about two geniuses. One is Halford Mackinder and the other one is Alfred Thayer Mahan. They were roughly contemporaries. Mackinder was born in 1861, Mahan was born in 1840. Mackinder was the genius, the father of geopolitics and the genius of land power. Mahan, of course, was the genius of sea power. His major books, the Role of Sea Power in History. Now, Mahan said a lot of things we're quite familiar with. And the Navy carries out, number one. To be a global power, to be a world power, you need to control the sea lanes. And that begins, obviously, the vessels in the Navy. You start there, but you identify the choke points and we know what they are. The Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca, the three island chains off the coast of China in the Western Pacific. You identify the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar. We know what the choke points are. But to do that you need a series of bases. You can't just send a ship, you know, 8,000 miles and expected to arrive, first of all, won't arrive quickly and secondly, may not be in very good shape by the time it gets there. The Russian Navy found that out the hard way. In the Russian Japanese War, the Japanese sank the Russian Pacific Fleet. And Czar Nicholas said, no problem, we'll send the Baltic Fleet over to Vladis Vostok. But by the time they got there, it took months to get there. They were exhausted, low on fuel, low on provisions, and the Japanese sank the Baltic Fleet. So at that point, Russia sued for peace. By the way, the peace treaty of the Russian Japanese war was settled here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire under, under the direction of Teddy Roosevelt. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize for that. But, but to get back to Mahan and Mackinder, so Mahan said, you need the navy, you need the, the choke points, you need a series of bases, but in addition to that, you need financial capacity to carry all that Out. And I once met with Andy Marshall. He was in his 90s when I met him. Unlike Biden, he actually was sharp as attack. He had served every president from Nixon to Trump in something called the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon. Geeky name. No one's ever heard of it, but it was, they were the futurists, the Office of Net Assessment.
- [32:14]
Steve Bannon
But hang on, hang on one second. When I was in the Pentagon, this is just like Michael Pack and I made a movie about Rickover. Michael had come up with the idea, said that I think at the time only 3% of the American population knew Rickover's name or was familiar with it. And this is one of the giants of the 20th century. And our security evolves from the thinking and actions of Admiral Rickover. Andy Marshall is probably at zero. Andy Marshall is one of the most significant individuals behind the scenes in the entire 20th century. I mean the basically straight strategy of the American empire was really thought through by. And today people when you say Net Assessment, they think it's something to do with the Internet. It was the, basically to take it at the net side. But it was a brilliant kind of internal think tank to the Benicon. And this guy was a great guy and absolutely a brilliant, brilliant strategist. I think one of the greatest strategists this country's ever had. But continue on, Jim.
- [33:15]
Jim Rickards
Yeah, I agree. So I met with, with Andy and one of his deputies that we're in a vault in the Pentagon, just the three of us and kind of, you know, my expertise, you know, is financial warfare and so forth. So we went through a lot of things and I, at one point I said to him, he was 90, I called him Mr. Marshall. I thought that was a suitable. I said, Mr. Marshall, you're going to wake up one day and find that you have a forward deployed Navy, you're going to pull into a shipyard and ask for some services and they're going to ask you to pay in a currency that you don't print. And Andy was a great listener, didn't say a lot, but that was, that got a reaction out of me, goes, yeah, we need to look at that. In other words, I was talking about the role of the US dollar, so, and again, you can go back to the pound sterling and before that the Dutch Guilder, etc. Naval power, military power in general, naval power in particular, go hand in hand with, with a strong currency. I'm not talking about exchange rate valuations and talking about a currency that people, people have trust in. Now this naval Power shifts from time to time. You go back the 16th century, it was the Portuguese and the Spanish. Portuguese went east, the Spanish went west in the 17th century, believe it or not, the Netherlands, the Dutch navy was very powerful, defeated the Royal Navy in a number of battles. 18th century, the French, they helped us out in the American Revolution. 19th century, Royal Navy all the way through 20th century. Obviously, the US Navy, although let's give a shout out to the Japanese, they were the first to adapt to aircraft carriers. The British and the Germans were completely locked into battleships and the Japanese started basically building very crude aircraft carriers. And the U.S. navy was not far behind. So the question for the 21st century is, what is it? Does the US get another 100 years of naval dominance or do the Chinese come along and steal the crown, so to speak? My view is that the Chinese are not going to be able to do that. If you study them internally, they. I'm not saying they're not a threat. You never benefit from underestimating your enemy. They have enormous internal social problems, demographic problems, financial problems. Xi Jinping looks like he's been knocked down a peg and is actually subordinate to the military at this stage. And people talk about the Japanese, sorry, the Chinese now have three aircraft carrier battle groups, but they've got this ski ramp technology which they took from the Russians to get the planes airborne, you kind of go up a lift. The bow of the ship is where the flight deck rather is curved up. The problem with that, it's not very efficient. They have to go up with half fuel loads and half loads of armaments in order not to crash into the sea once they take off. The US has mastered the catapult technology. So right there they have a. Do you not battle test it?
- [35:58]
Steve Bannon
That will battle test it. This one I get to. By the way, we got Gruber's on the scene out, I think with one of the combatants right now. We're going to go to Steve Gruber in a moment. Posobeck's at Andrew Air Force Base. The president will be leaving from there and in fact, if he leaves from the lawn, we'll try to. I'm sure he's going to have a gaggle. So we'll try to get to President Trump throughout the day. We're going to be juggling between our strategists and geopoliticians and people know about the details of, of the Navy's operations and strike power with everything that's going on. First off, well, I want to get to the fighting, being able to fight the ship In a moment. Do you believe Rickards, that to be a global power you need to have a naval. You need to have a naval presence that has the ability to strike globally.
- [36:49]
Jim Rickards
That's one way to do it. But let's give a little credit to Mackinder. Mackinder came up with this idea. He looked at the Eurasian landmass. He didn't count Europe as a separate continent, maybe a separate civilization, but Europe and Asia, by extension Africa and the Middle east and the Indian subcontinent. And he called it the world island. And he identified a place called the heartland, which is kind of around Xi', An, China. Been to Xi', an, it was the capital long before Beijing or Nanjing, Southern Siberia and again Central Asia. And he said he who controls the heartland controls the world island. And he who controls the world island controls the world. So there is another theory. Now, the last guy to do it was Genghis Khan. And the descendants of Genghis Khan were the mobilizations.
- [37:34]
Steve Bannon
But The World War II was about. World War II was a battle for the fight for that Eurasian landmass between the Imperial Japanese army and the Germans. This is why they hit from two different sides. The naval exercise Cleopascal just stick there because Cleopasque, I would argue, is the Alfred Thayer mahan of the 21st century. Her theory, the case is, yes, Mackinder is the heartland. The world island is what the 20th century wars were about. But the 21st century, and particularly for American hemispheric security, pivots around the vast Pacific, which is, Captain Fanell tells me, approximately 20 times the surface mass of the United States. It is vast. And the argument is that the strategic heartland of the United States is that the pivot of world history in the 21st century. We're getting at all that today. Plus we're going to see some good old fashioned Navy fighting power. We're talking about this concept of combat hardness and fighting the ship. What is meant historically. Take a short commercial break. Real America's Voice and war room. Navy 250 all day today here at Real America's Voice. Back in a moment.
- [39:00]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 Sea Power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor AMAC for standing with RAV. Welcome back to Navy 250 Sea Power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with rav.
- [39:32]
Steve Bannon
Okay, welcome back. AMAC Birchgold and Patriot Mobile. Three of our sponsors today. Folks have really taken care of us, really appreciate it. And all great companies make sure there are services and products. You spend some time looking at and thinking about Steve Gruber, always doing yeoman's duty. I tell you, Gruber, here's what I admire about you. I'm tossing you. I want you to tell us where I. But here's what I admire most about you. You're one of the biggest personalities in this business. You're the Rush Limbaugh of Michigan. Your people listen to you and watch you because of your insights. And yet you go do the hard work. Every time we have one of these things, you're always on the riser as an old school reporter. Where are you, sir, and what are you doing today?
- [40:20]
Steve Gruber
I'm going to tell you, Steve, I'm right in the heart of it here. Main stage, right behind me. We'll see the President here later. The USS Truman is right here next to me. An impressive aircraft here. But I have got to weigh in on a couple of things. First of all, this is kind of old hat to you, Steve. You're a Navy veteran. For me, I get these opportunities on occasion. A few years ago, I was on the USS Michigan. You were talking about those Ohio class submarines who were involved in that attack on Iran. I was on the USS Michigan. It was not involved in that. But it's one of those Ohio class submarines that's loaded with ballistic missiles. What a, what an education that was. What an education is here for me to see an F18 Hornet parked right here on the deck, not up on the flight deck, but right here for everybody to see. I've got all sorts. I've got an Osprey here behind me. Just remarkable for me to see. But I want to weigh in on something else you talk about. I love the conversation about Teddy Roosevelt. Nobody could overstate his job as Under Secretary of the Navy. 1897, 1898, 13 months. He was in the job and basically without authorization. He knew the United States Navy needed to be bolstered. He knew we had to be a global power. And he did it without much permission. And he went and did it just before the Spanish American War. It was a remarkable thing. By the way, Teddy Roosevelt will celebrate his 167th birthday on the 27th of October this year. I know that, Steve, because it's my birthday. So I've had an affinity for Teddy Roosevelt for a long time. I think he did great things for American military. So there you go. Personal story.
- [41:48]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, Gruber. Hang on. I come right back to you, Captain Fennell. Let's talk about that Teddy Roosevelt. I think the first, the first president that saw the Navy as a tool for basically the global expansion of the United States and the power of the United States as Under Secretary of the Navy is later his. His cousin fdr also, I think Secretary of the Navy, Undersecretary of the Navy. Talk about Teddy Roosevelt, the Great White Fleet, the importance of Spanish American War and the rise the power of the United States around the Navy.
- [42:22]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, Steve, you know, we were at that time in the world development. We are in this point where, you know, there's. There's been an industrial revolution in Europe and there's buying and selling and trading and nations are expanding and colonialism is expanding by European nations around Africa and things of that nature, and they're expanding colonialism throughout Asia. And I think what President Roosevelt, then Secretary Roosevelt saw was this need that the United States was, if we were going to survive and not be, you know, have these European nations come to look to carve us up, that we needed to be out on the world stage and we needed to be modern and have a modern fleet that could operate globally to ensure our access to the markets and to be able to buy and sell and trade. It really hasn't changed in the last 150 years or 125 years since then, which is this faith and belief and free access to markets. The freedom of navigation. As Jim Rickards said, we got these choke points. The earth is 70% water. The most of it's in the Pacific, 50% of that. And we need to be able to buy and sell and trade and move goods and services. And at that time, we didn't have the capacity to ensure our ability to do that without being subject to the predations of other European capitals and their larger navies. And so I think that turning point in the Spanish American war was for us, a turning point to say, hey, we are now a global player. We are on this global stage.
- [43:55]
Steve Bannon
And.
- [43:55]
Captain Jim Fennell
And it set in motion many, many things. It was the age of going from sailing ships, wooden men and wooden ships and iron men, to iron ships and iron men was kind of the way to phrase it. And so we became the modern Navy in that era, and we kept progressing. And so we incorporated technology, research and development, things of that nature that weren't just into the shipbuilding, weren't just into recruiting we. But this idea that we had to have naval armaments and naval gunnery and that we had to have proficiency and science behind those kinds of technologies. It was also during the period of the birth of the undersea, the submarine fleet and the submarine force so lots of new things were coming into the Navy at the turn of the beginning of the 20th century. And it was all really set in motion because of, as Steve Gruber said, of one guy who went out on his own and knew what needed to be done and pushed hard for it. And that also set the precedent, as we talked about throughout the next 125 years, where we saw other periods in our history where people stood up and said, okay, I'm going to lead in this area. We need to get back to leading in maritime and naval power.
- [45:05]
Steve Bannon
And as Gruber said, when Teddy Roosevelt was in the Department of Navy, he didn't. He was going to beg forgiveness. He wasn't going to ask permission. He just did it. Cleo, I want to go to you, because those giants and thinking about the Spanish American War, what they understood is that manifest destiny, the destiny of the United States, did not end at the shoreline of California. It was not simply the settlers and the pioneers and all these heroic giants that we stand on the shoulders of that really went across the Mississippi, out west into this really hostile environment to build a civilization that it projected farther. They're the first ones that understood and the importance of the Pacific to the United States, and that essentially our destiny would ultimately be tied to being a Pacific power. Walk us through that, ma'. Am.
- [45:54]
Cleo Pascal
Yeah. So this, this goes back to very early on in US History. The Navy actually sent out an exploring expedition in the Pacific from about 1838-42. They didn't have the money for the whole thing. The President didn't have the money for the whole thing. So he sent it out hoping that it would be so popular that Congress would find the money to bring it back, which. Which was the case. Which proved to be the case. But at that point, the Pacific was very much of a. Of a European lake. And the US Felt threatened by it. Hawaii was sacked by the French in the. In the late 1840s. And the US representative there at the time sent a message back then, and then again later in the 70s, saying, if a hostile power control controls Hawaii, we're not going to be safe and we're not going to be able to trade. And that was really what set up the Spanish American war part in the Pacific, which was. President McKinley later said that the reason that they took the Philippines and took Guam was because there was an understanding that if the dons, as he called the Spanish, controlled the Philippines, then the US mainland wasn't safe. And so that year, 1898, was a very important year for the US saying we don't want any hostile powers controlling the Pacific because not only did the US take the Philippines and Guam, but that was also when Hawaii joined, joined the U.S. or was annexed to the, to the U.S. giving that Central point in the Pacific from which you could then refuel and, and be able to move forward.
- [47:25]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I want to be very. People understand this. In 1898, a geostrategic decision was made that no hostile power will ever control the Pacific. No hostile power ever control the Pacific. We fought the half of the Second World War. At least a third of the Second World War was fought to make sure that we drove the Imperial Japanese Navy out of the Pacific. And Today in the 21st century, our central, our central threat as a great power. Maybe not the threat here and the threat the deep state and all these other threats that we're trying to stare down or break apart, but the existential threat as a great power struggle ain't Russia in the Eurasian landmass. It is the challenge of the rise of the Chinese Communist Party in its navy to basically have a hostile power take over the Pacific. That's essentially in a nutshell where we stand today, given our history of over what, 127, 130 years when we made this decision as a country.
- [48:32]
Cleo Pascal
It's absolutely. I mean, this is why I think Mackinder was never really relevant for the US the central Pacific was always the US geographical pivot of history. If a hostile foreign power controlled it, the US wasn't safe. @ the time that this was clear that it was the Spanish and the British and the French. Then it became the Japanese, then it was the Soviets and now it's the Chinese. The geography doesn't change. And that's why parts of the United States like the Commonwealth and Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, which are an eight hour flight west of Hawaii but only a four hour flight southeast of Tokyo, for example, or from Taiwan are Americans on American soil. That is a strategic lesson, including coded in history and given to future Americans to remember we are a Pacific power. The US is a Pacific power without the. And that was actually what Teddy Roosevelt said when he sent the Great White Fleet through is one of the reasons he did it was to remind Americans and everybody else that the US was as much of a Pacific power as an Atlantic power. So this is. And McKinley was also very, very clear about this was widely known from early on and it became part of also, for example, the purchase of Alaska in 1867 was an attempt to do a pincher move on British Columbia, what was then a British colony, to control the entire west coast so that there couldn't be any infiltration onto the continent from other Pacific powers. So don't forget Alaska when you're talking about the Pacific or the Gulf, ghost of Billy Mitchell will come and haunt you in your sleep.
- [50:13]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, we're going to get all that Billy Mitchell about new technology. Court martialed Billy Mitchell for trying to show naval air power. Alaska, also the Panama Canal. Right now, folks, we've allowed the Caribbean to become a lake of the Chinese, of the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party. That's all going to be swept out. President Trump's hemispheric defense from Greenland and the Arctic all the way to the Panama Canal and then down to Latin America. Of course, we have an amphibious ready group as we speak today with 4,000 fleet marines and sailors off the coast of Venezuela looking at a potential strike to take over the seaports, the air bases and logistics nodes, potentially, although we're not at war with a nation or won't be a war with a nation, the Trump administration has already told, already told Congress we are already at war, a kinetic war against the drug cartels. Okay, we're going to get into all of it. Got Cleopascal, we got Captain Fennell, we got Steve Gruber on the Truman. We're going to go back to Gruber. Jim Rickards is with us for Geopolitics. We're going to be joined by the great filmmaker Michael Pack, his amazing film on Admiral Rickover, one of the greatest giants of the 20th century, under a appreciated and under and misunderstood short. Commercial break we're going to come back 11 o'. Clock. Also, I think Jack Bosovic's at Andrews Air Force Base. The president's going to get ready to leave, Monica. Ambassador Crowley, I think is going to take the stage, give a speech with a couple of Navy Seals. There's a lot going on today in Navy 250. Back in a moment.
- [51:59]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor, Birch Gold Group for standing with Rav. This Sunday at 10am Eastern, history sets sail.
- [52:20]
Steve Bannon
I'm going to have all the all folks from the Navy national security experts. You do not want to miss this.
- [52:25]
Announcer
President Donald J. Trump arrives in Norfolk, Virginia, aboard a mighty US Aircraft carrier.
- [52:33]
Cleo Pascal
Fight, fight. Fight. Win. Win, Win.
- [52:38]
Announcer
As America celebrates 250 years of Navy power, brace yourself for missile launches, roaring jets, thunderous firepower and the whole full force of America's sea strength on display. Hosted by Steve Bannon with live reporting from Jack Bosobic and Steve Gruber. Real America's voice brings you this front row seat to Freedom in Motion. It's not just coverage. It's a celebration of America's might. RAV presents America 250. Sea Power and Freedom coverage begins this Sunday, 10am Eastern. See you there.
- [53:16]
Steve Bannon
You know, he was.
- [53:17]
Michael Pack
He's well known for being impatient.
- [53:20]
Jason Redmond
You're holding up the whole damn show, Rockwell.
- [53:22]
Steve Bannon
He never took the position, you know. Now, son, let's sit down and talk about this. Don't be an idiot.
- [53:28]
Announcer
Rickover quickly got a reputation that he and only he within the Navy would tell the truth.
- [53:35]
Captain Jim Fennell
And Rickover was a charmer. I'm actually quite moved. The bottom line is Rickover was a genius.
- [53:42]
Steve Bannon
I can visualize machines operating right in.
- [53:45]
Captain Jim Fennell
My mind and an sob.
- [53:48]
Steve Bannon
Never mind the good news. Get to the problem. If he didn't get it right, if they had a safety accident, that would.
- [53:53]
Announcer
Be the end of the program. He was demanding things that our society.
- [53:57]
Captain Jim Fennell
Even during the Cold War, could not produce it on a Rickover schedule to.
- [54:01]
Steve Bannon
Rickover's cost, the way Rickover wanted it. The fact that that the United States has operated hundreds of nuclear reactors in the world's oceans and never had a nuclear accident is the greatest contribution that Admiral Rickover has made to the country. Our job is to anticipate the worst and then fix it.
- [54:24]
Captain Jim Fennell
No one in my life influenced me.
- [54:26]
Steve Bannon
More than Admiral Rickover, except for my father.
- [54:29]
Cleo Pascal
Admiral Rickover had the greatest impact on.
- [54:32]
Steve Bannon
My life of any other man that I've ever met. The question comes up, what would Rick overdo? And the answer is I know exactly what I do and I'm not willing to do that. But I don't get the things done that he got done. How can you run a Navy if.
- [54:47]
Cleo Pascal
Everybody in it acts like you do?
- [54:49]
Steve Bannon
If everybody. I never told the others how to act. I acted my own way. One of the giants of the 21st neighbor and get to the filmmaker in a second. Michael Paxton will join us momentarily. President United States just sent out on True Social. It will be a big day with the Navy leaving now. The United States has the greatest military by far in the world. There will be a show of naval aptitude and strength. Enjoy watching. It will be broadcast everywhere. President Donald J. Trump, DJT thank you, President Trump. We're doing it all day here. Seven, eight hours to ever. It ends and the President gets back to the White House, of course, he gets back to the White House. I think they're going to Situation Room 6 o', clock, 6pm I still think unless something otherwise, he's saying, hey, Hamas, you're in or out. I've given you a deal. You got the framework for the deal. I need to see you going to accept it or not. Of course, a lot of maneuvering going in the background. We'll get all that in a moment. I still have the House. Can I go to Steve Gruber for a moment? Steve, you're on the Truman, I guess that's pierside at the Norfolk Naval Station. Talk to us, Steve, about what's going to happen later in the day. We've got Monica Crowley, Ambassador Crowley, come up to tee things up, I think at around noon. Then the President's going to go out to the naval gunfire range off the Virginia Capes for a live fire exercise. I think it will last an hour or so, probably two. If the President's got anything to say about it. Then what's going to happen? So walk us through the day, sir.
- [56:20]
Steve Gruber
You know, it's a remarkable day and you just laid it out pretty well. Look, this is celebration of the United States Navy. You look around, you've got thousands of it shipping around me here you've got the USS Truman, you've got the kerflage over here, which is a amphibious battle group ship. Just the most impressive stuff. Like I said, Steve, this is stuff that you're familiar with. But for me, I'm excited like a 12 year old because I see all this impressive and the scale and scope these things for. People have never been next to a battleship. They don't understand how big these things are. This thing, the USS Truman is 1100ft long. It's 11 football fields long on top. It's a remarkable thing to see.
- [56:58]
Steve Bannon
But.
- [56:58]
Steve Gruber
But I do want to say something about what you guys were talking about here a minute ago about pivotal naval battles. And no more than in the last month have we seen this revival happening in America. And make no mistake, Providence has played a role and America's success in military battles, especially on the water. You go to Admiral Hazard Perry in Lake Erie, sinking the British fleet when he was completely outnumbered. 1814, impossible to do. But I go to June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway. We were outgunned, outmanned, out, had, and by God, we made it happen. Between the 4th and 7th of June, 1942, the Battle of Midway, it shifted that until entire Pacific domination that you were talking about earlier pushing the Japanese empire back and then of course beating them later in the war. These are important considerations when you look at American history, Providence, you have to look at the grace of God that came in and made these things possible for us to win incredible battles against all odds time and again for this nation to be standing here 250 years later, Steve and I think that cannot be overstated when you look at the impressive. I mean it is really jaw dropping to sit here. Like I said, I'm like a kid looking at all this impressive machinery theme thank God I'm an American and I really mean that because it's a great place to be. The weather's perfect. The president's gonna arrive. He's gonna speak here later. Jack Posobic is with him. He's gonna watch some live fire exercises. We look forward to that. We've got, by the way, cameras everywhere. I think we've got a double a dozen different camera setups here on Real America's Voice today. So that's pretty exciting. Let me do one more thing before I jump back to you. Let me thank the good sponsors here like Patriot Mobile, America's only Christian conservative wireless network helping US power this day. If you don't have Patriot Mobile, I don't know why Patriot Mobile does the things that you care about, supports the organizations and the things you care about. So you should support patriot mobile. Patriot mobile.com voice your first month is free. I think today with the promo code voice there I got that in. What a lovely day.
- [59:02]
Steve Bannon
Tell you what, Gruber, you, you totally nailed it. In fact, I'm a go. I got to go off your comment there which is so perceptive. This is one of the reasons I think the Navy hymn is so powerful for those in the Navy because of the divine providence intervention as so many of our naval battles. I want to. So I'm going to pivot here. I want to go back to. President Trump is a lover of history, particularly military history. He has seen the Samuel Elliot Morrison off of his great writing of the naval operations of the second World War that made the film Victory at Sea, a multi part documentary that Michael Packwell has appreciated. Such a great film. President Trump, it moves. President Trump today is the enthusiasm of a young man. I mean he loves this. This is like he's very much like Teddy Roosevelt in that regard of he is looking forward to today and it's a long time coming. I think we should have done it many years ago. But President Trump is doing today and couldn't be more appropriate on the 250th anniversary of the, of the birth of the Navy. But Fennell, you first and then Rickards on this. It's about. I want to make the point about the Chinese Communist Party Navy today in World War II, given all the overwhelming power in the buildup of the Imperial Japanese Navy, where they actually thought, although the Imperial Japanese army kind of ran the deal with Tojo and the military dictatorship that essentially ran Japan, their navy was the striking force against the United States, the great power and the Economic Co Prosperity Sphere. They had to take out the United States Navy and they were going to take it out of Pearl Harbor. One thing we found both at Pearl harbor and Midway and Leyte golf and our the ability to fight the ship, the ability to make those naval, naval battles unlike any other battles in the world because they're so lethal, they're so confusing. There's so much happening, it's happening so quickly that their inability, what we call fight the ship, to make fundamentally bad decisions in the deciding moment when it counts. And that what we call the unforgiving minute was one of the central reasons besides intelligence and firepower and our courage, was our leaders like the Royal Navy, like Nelson, and had we been trained, made those correct decisions. So, Fennell, I'll talk to you. First, the Chinese Communist Party, the argument. I still kind of make the argument they ain't never fought at sea, right, in sea battles and sea warfare. And I realize you've got technology, you got AI, you got robots, you got all that. But at the end of the day, it comes down to humans and human calculation and the courage under intense gunfire and death and destruction to make the correct decisions in the unforgiving minute. Sir?
- [61:43]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yes, Steve? You know, with Gruber's enthusiasm and saying he's a 12 year old, being there at Norfolk and seeing all the ships, you know, if I was there, I'd be exactly the same. And I served in uniform for 29 years. You just can't get enough of it. But let me tell you just this last week during their national day in Hong Kong, the Chinese had a number of their warships and in Port Hong Kong, and they had thousands of people lining up to go on board their ships and see their naval power. And then 22nd of September, the Chinese launched for the first time ever, a fifth generation Stealth fighter using electromagnetic aircraft launch system from the deck of their newest carrier, the Fujian, something that the United States Navy has yet to do. The USS Gerald R. Ford has yet to be able to launch F35 Lightning II stealth fighter from the Deck of the Ford. So they have skipped an entire generation of technology in certain key areas like steam catapults. They went from ski jumps now into electromagnetics. So the question that you ask is do they have the wherewithal and the knowledge and the ability to fight and win a war? And that is to be determined. But I can tell you from my career in naval intelligence and watching them is that they are testing and training like we used to test and train. They're not controlled like the Soviets were in terms of their fighters are getting minute by minute control, they have limited fuel, they don't want them to defect. And all of those kinds of things that we saw with the Soviets, we don't see that with the Chinese. In fact, what we see is the opposite. They're taking to heart the issues and the abilities to empower their people to connect, to use electromagnetic spectrum, to integrate fires from the land, from the air, from this under the sea, on the sea. And this is something that should worry us, doesn't mean that we have to give up. But we should not take it lightly or for granted that their lack of being in a naval war is something that makes them inferior to us. For many of us, even though we've launched those strikes into Tehran this week and we fought 35 years of carrier operations where we were flying basically unopposed over Afghanistan and Iraq, that's a lot different than a naval war when we're fighting inside that first and second island chain against a force that's concentrated and has been working and practicing together to sink the US Pacific Fleet. And make no mistake, for a quarter of a century, the Chinese Communist Party Party has been funding and building a military force across their Navy, their space, their air forces and their undersea forces to sink the U.S. pacific Fleet and the 7th Fleet. And we better be prepared for that.
- [64:31]
Steve Bannon
Yeah. And I don't know if psychologically the American people are ready to have a carrier battle group go to the bottom off of Taiwan. We'll talk all about that today. We're going to take a short commercial break. We're packed with some of the smartest people about naval warfare and geopolitics. We're going to return a Navy 250 in a moment.
- [65:00]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with Rav. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor AMAC for standing with Rav.
- [65:32]
Steve Bannon
Okay, welcome back. I really want to thank Real America's voice, everybody, for doing all the logistics day. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be a little complicated. We're going to juggle. We've got so many great folks about naval operations, about strategy, geopolitics, all of it. I want to go to Michael Paak and Michael the last 600 meters, which is essentially a film, basically about the Marine Corps in fighting in Fallujah. First Fallujah, but then you got. You got what? Najaf and then second Fallujah. I want to talk today. And the movie's fantastic, and I think we're going to play it actually. Was it October 30th? You'll give us the details of that. But your film on Admiral Rickover, I think it came off an assessment. You had either seen polling or I had that they did a poll, and I think only 3% of the American people recognize his name. And he is a giant of the 20th century. He's a giant because he is the father of the nuclear. Walk me through what inspired you to do Rickover's story. How did you convince Tim Blake Nelson to play Admiral Rickover? The film's fabulous, and I don't think it's been seen enough. And we gotta make sure we push it out. Michael Pack.
- [66:43]
Michael Pack
Well, people can see it. It's on Amazon. If you go to. It's Rickover the birth of nuclear Power. I agree that he's really underappreciated. You know, in all the celebration of the Navy, it's easy to neglect submarines and nuclear submarines. Of course, the aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, too. But, you know, Admiral Rickover is like a hero of the Cold War. And I think that whole war is actually neglected. You know, World War II, far more dramatic Midway as someone just was talking about a very dramatic battle.
- [67:13]
Captain Jim Fennell
But.
- [67:13]
Steve Bannon
Hey, Michael. Michael. Mike, hang on for one second. Let's go to Jack Posobec. Got some. Okay. Okay, fine. By the way, we're gonna have to play it by ear. Let's get Poso back up. Michael, continue on. We're gonna go to Jack Posobic live when we get him. We thought we had him. We didn't just continue on about Rickover.
- [67:32]
Michael Pack
You know, he is an undersung hero, just like you said. And I also think he's the kind of naval hero that does get neglected. I mean, Pete Hegseth and others talk about the war ethos, and that is really important. But Admiral Rick Everett was a great engineer and entrepreneur within the Navy. People compare him to Steve Jobs or somebody like that. It's hard to he innovated within the navy and created as you say, the nuclear Navy. It's a huge achievement and we would not have won the Cold War without it. I think in a way the Nautilus going under the pole, under the North Pole should be celebrated in the same way that Midway is celebrated. It's a sent a signal to the Soviets that we controlled the terrain under the sea as important really as the surface of the sea.
- [68:22]
Steve Bannon
The reason the Cold War didn't become hotter than it was was because of Rickover in the nuclear navy and our dominance in naval power. This is the Soviets got the joke right and started building such a global, a global navy to try to catch up with this. And it's the reason Reagan, the central part of Reagan's take down the evil empire before he got to Star wars and all that was first we're going to show them that we're going to be. We're going to go from 200 ships in a deteriorating navy right to back to 600 capital ships and tell them that we're prepared to fight them everywhere in the world. If it was not for Rickover, number one, I'm not so sure we would have won the Cold War. And number two, it would have been a lot hotter. I think it would have gotten a lot hotter than it did in actual gunfire. Michael, pack your thoughts.
- [69:09]
Michael Pack
Absolutely. I mean, he's responsible for one third of the triad, you know, nuclear submarines, to say nothing of aircraft carriers and commercial nuclear power. But yeah, without that part of the triad. And Admiral Rick, ever a big advocate for nuclear submarines, he pointes out. It's the survivable leg of the triad. You could shoot down planes, you could hit ICBM silos, which Soviets knew where they all were. It was the survivable element and we had dominance in that area. And that really. I think you're right. It kept a lid on the Cold War and he was tireless in that way. We don't really celebrate, in fact the heroes of the Cold War period, but Admiral Rickover is unfairly neglected. I hope my movie does help celebrate him. I think people should go and understand him. I think that kind of the Rickover approach is really needed today if we're going to really rebuild the Navy. In addition to the warrior ethos and tough fighting men and women, we need to know how to commission submarines, how to deal with contractors and how to demand the engineering standards that he demanded. Yeah, you know, he reformed the navy at so many levels and they Hated him for it. I mean, he was a complete maverick. I don't know if somebody like that could survive today. You know, fought every CNO and Secretary of the Navy, you know, from the beginning of the end. They didn't even want to give a pun.
- [70:40]
Steve Bannon
So I was, I was there when they. I was there when they forced him to retire with some 80 some years old. No, he's a giant. I'm going to get into more about Rickover and about that, but the one thing we have to get the mentality of Rick over to make America great again, it was his zero tolerance. They had to have zero tolerance for any fault in the nuclear power plant. He knew that if it ever had a problem at sea, the whole thing would be scuttled. The whole thing would be shut down. Talk about his maniac focus on perfection, on human perfection with machines. That, to me, is his lasting legacy, that this guy thought this thing through and understood. You couldn't have anything go wrong. And I have to have basically average sailors, average Americans that I train as enlisted guys. And I got to take this officer corps and make sure that because I'm getting maybe above average people and maybe they got certain qualities that are excellent. But we have to take the entire operation like the Royal Navy did. You got to take an organization up to, like, you got to level up, like five levels. Talk to me about that, Michael.
- [71:45]
Michael Pack
Well, that's right. They had, you know, to go from diesel submarines to nuclear submarines required a level of engineering perfection that not not only the Navy, but no company had ever seen. And he had lots of ways of doing that. I mean, in our interview, Ralph Nader, a big opponent of nuclear power, said that if Admiral Rickover ran commercial nuclear power, he would not oppose it because he knows it would be safe. Not sure I 100% believed him, but still, everybody knows the nuclear Navy was safe. He was demanding. I mean, he had techniques like he had spies at every one of the contractors. And he forbade them from ever socializing with the contractors. You can't go out for dinner. You can't become their friends. They were effectively spies, and the contractors hated him. But he knew what was going on, and he knew when there was a problem and he knew how to fix it. And all along the chain, he set new standards and new techniques. They're new in a way, but I think they could be relearned today. And if we're going to build up the Navy and build up the military, we need to relearn those lessons. And luckily, Rick Ever's example Is there to study.
- [73:00]
Steve Bannon
President Trump. There you see Marine One. President Trump, we're now getting ready to start things. Absolutely incredible. Jack Posobes with the president to make sure that President Trump arriving at Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews didn't do a press gaggle. I guess President Trump taking it seriously today. Michael, hang on for one second. I want to bring in Captain Brent Sadler. Captain Sadler, you were a nuclear submariner. I think you came in. Were you interviewed by Rickover or you post that generation? I know that Admiral Rickover, I think his last tour is when I was still at Grundoon, a junior officer of the Chief of Naval Operations. Did you come in afterwards because Rickover used to interview everybody before he accepted you in there, Captain Sadler? Yeah, thanks for having me on. I was enjoying the conversation about Admiral Rickover. Now, I missed the joy of having the admiral interview me, but I definitely had his successor in 1993. That first interview that all midshipmen from the Naval Academy had to go through and certainly anyone that was going to go want to become a nuclear submariner had to endure. Highly technical and just as pointed as it was, I think, under Rickover. But the things like cutting the front part of the chair so that you were always sliding forward and uncomfortable, some of those shenanigans, those were gone by the time I went through. There's a commander in chief right there. Commander in chief leaving Marine One, going to Air Force One. The first lady's with him. Like I said, President Trump couldn't be more enthusiastic about this. That you saw his true social pac. Before I go back to Captain Sadler, talk a little bit about Rickover's interviews, what he would do. He had a tradition of being. He wanted to see what people responded under pressure.
- [74:46]
Michael Pack
That's right. So he didn't just ask technical questions. He tried to ask questions that you couldn't possibly anticipate. And he was devastating. If you didn't give the right answer, you were out. And you're correct, Steve. He interviewed absolutely everybody. Every midshipman who wanted to be in the nuclear navy, he interviewed them from the time. From the time he ran the nuclear Navy in the 50s to the mid-80s when he left. And we dramatized three or four of these interviews in the film, and people never forgot them. There were many people traumatized by them. One that I like that puts him in a nice setting is he demanded, he asked every person whether they repaired their own car and if they didn't repair their own car, they were out. That was the end. And he Talked to a female who wanted to be in the nuclear Navy, asked her if she repaired her car and she said no. And he said, well, you're out. And then she called him on Monday and said, I've spent the weekend taking my car apart and putting it back together again. Just wanted you to know. And he said, well, if you did that, you're in. So that's Rickover. He asked a different kind of question, a question that takes who you are. You can always be talked back to him.
- [76:00]
Steve Bannon
This is the point I was trying to make about fighting the ship. Why did Rickover put youngmanshipmen under these pressure situations? Why did Rick overt want to test what their mettle was, not their technical knowledge, which is very important. They had to be brilliant. Right. You had to be the top of your class or close to it. You had to know technically. He understood that in running a nuclear power plant on a Navy submarine. Right. And in charge of ballistic missiles. Right. That are the part of the triad of the nuclear force. You are going to be put under circumstances. They're going to test you as a person. Right. Just like at Midway, just like at Pearl harbor, just like at Leyte golf, all the great naval battles. Gruber's right. It's that, it's that unforgiving minute is what Brickover is trying to do. What is your character? How are you going to respond under pressure? I'm going to put you, you're 18 and 19 years old. I'm going to put you under pressure and if you can't handle it, you're not going to be able to handle it later on. And so you're out. And he was brutal, he was ruthless and he had to be. We wouldn't have had a nuclear Navy. We wouldn't have had. We wouldn't be the dominant sea power. We are without Admiral Rickover and that's why he's one of the giants of the 20th century. Hang on for one second. We're take a break. The president, I guess we're going to try to get our feedback of President Trump leaving Air Force One. There we are right there. We got a clip from Jack Posobic. We're going to play it all. We're going to juggle it all. We're going to be back in a moment in the war room in real America's voice. Continuing coverage of Navy 250. Back in a moment.
- [77:46]
Jason Redmond
Learn more from every.
- [77:58]
Announcer
We'Ll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor AMAC for standing with RAV. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Birch Gold Group for standing with Rav.
- [78:29]
Steve Bannon
Chuck's over here waiting the arrival of President Trump. First Lady Melania Trump join Dave Andrews as you see Air Force One behind me. President stairwell has been attached. We're waiting for him to be here imminent.
- [78:48]
Cleo Pascal
You understand that he may take some questions.
- [78:50]
Steve Bannon
We'll see what goes on with that. Navy 250th getting underway down Virginia will be down conducting exercises. A sea power demonstration on the USS Bush and also travel by a helicopter to the USS Truman where President Trump will give remarks the world's finest Navy on their 250th birthday. Jack, Jack Posoberg right there. Naval intelligence officer on a the world's greatest Navy. Fantastic. He's on Air Force One. We see at the Air Force taxiing right there, getting ready to take off. There we go. Taxiing out there. We're going to cover that live. Michael, pack before I let you punch and I'll try to get you back later in the day if you're available. But Michael, I want to also make sure people understand about Admiral Rickover. Admiral Rickover is Jewish. In a time the Navy's always been, at least in the, let's say the 19th and 20th century, I think the more aristocratic of the of the services. Very hierarchical, very very in customs and traditions. A lot of those that came from the Royal Navy and had certain ways of doing things. Talk about really Rickover, his toughness. A lot of it was being a young Jewish midshipman and then a naval officer in what was not particularly accommodating to the Jewish faith or to people that were Jews, sir. Indeed.
- [80:21]
Michael Pack
I mean, you mentioned this on the break. He was in the Naval Academy and in his yearbook, they perforated his page so that if you didn't want that annoying Jew in your yearbook, you could tear it out without actually damaging the yearbook. A very Navy persnickety thing, if you don't mind my saying, Steve. And it was shocking. I mean, his actual page next to it was a parody of a Jew with a hook nose. I mean, you could not. These things were real. You know, he was not very Jewish, but his name was Hyman Rickover. He was obviously Jewish. He sounded Jewish. Another amazing thing about Admiral Rickover is he fled Poland as a young boy and he remembers seeing Kazakhs coming into his village on a pogrom on horses with sabers, slashing Jews. And to go from that to creating the most advanced nuclear submarine, nuclear aircraft carrier is an amazing transformation of firepower in his lifetime and that he was instrumental in. But he came here speaking only Yiddish and he learned English. So he was here. So they came to Chicago. And he only went to the Naval Academy to get a free education. So yes, he had to deal with a sort of, I would call it more of a gentleman's agreement kind of anti Semitism that was in the Navy at that time. And as you said also in the break, he was not everybody's kind of naval officer. You know, they love the idea of, you know, of, you know, the naval officers on the bridge commanding troops, you know, so he was not that kind of a person. He was the engineer, the technical, the technology genius.
- [82:09]
Steve Bannon
We're raised when you, when you're in the Navy or the stories you read that it's inspire you. Like me, it's Lord Nelson right at Trafalgar, it's, it's John Paul Jones. You're on the bridge, guns up. You know, I've only begun to fight. I have not yet begun to fight. He was a, he was. There we go right there. Air Force One, talk about technology. Air Force One leaving Andrews Air Force Base, not Joint Base Andrews. Come on man, we got to get all the wokeness out. Andrews Air Force Base and heading down to the Norfolk Naval Station with the commander in chief and Jack Posovic's with him. Steve Gruber is going to be deployed out I think on a combatant here shortly. So we're going to, we're going to have amazing coverage, camera coverage of all this. Pac, he's an extraordinary individual and you're right, he's an engineering, basically an engineering duty officer. An engineering officer back in those days when those guys were also considered second and third class citizens inside the hierarchy of the Navy. But he hammered his way through and most importantly convinced everybody. And then he delivered. It just wasn't just one making the sales pitch. He delivered time and time and time and time again because he said we cannot have any mistakes. If we have any mistakes, they're going to shut this whole program down. Pac, where do people go get the last 600 meters? I think we're going to have a special showing of the last 600 meters later in October, which we're going to make a big deal about. And we got to do something on the Rickover film to make sure that everybody sees it and understands why. Admiral Hyman Rickover is one of the giants of the 20th century, where they.
- [83:37]
Michael Pack
Go, sir, well, The Rickover film Rickover the Birth of Nuclear Power. You can stream it, get it on Amazon. Stream it or buy it. And the last 600 meters, which is about the biggest battles since Vietnam, Fallujah and Najaf. They were mainly marine battles. Now look, the Marines are technically part of the Navy, though they don't like to admit it. However, we are happy that our.
- [84:01]
Steve Bannon
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean technically don't buy into the Marines? The Marines don't think they're any part of the Navy. Trust me, they don't think so.
- [84:14]
Michael Pack
But we know that. But we know that they are. But our film the last 600 meters will be broadcast by PBS after many years of not wanting to broadcast it. November 10th at 10pm the day before Veterans Day, the Marine Corps birthday. I'm sure you'll have celebration of their birthday too, Steve. And it's a perfect time slot for it and we hope everybody watches it. I think that it does celebrate the warrior ethos, you know, it's a different kind of warrior in the last 600 meters, not the Admiral Rickover kind. And it takes both kinds of. To make a great military. I often think of Admiral Rico as a long fight back and forth with Curtis LeMay about which part of the nuclear triad counted Most. And Curtis LeMay was very much in the tough military war at all cost kind of guy. And it takes both kinds to make a great military. America was lucky to have them both, even though they did not like each other.
- [85:17]
Steve Bannon
Although all both, although both they hated each other. Although both of them understood technical proficiency and understanding. It's the, it's the great question that Rickover said if you don't, if you don't fix your own car and strip your own car down, you're in the wrong light. You're in the long, long wrong line of work here in the nuclear Navy. By the way, Pac, you got great range as we say in the business, last 600 meters, hour and a half hour 45 minute gunfight. And then you've got Admiral Ricker which is a brilliant statement about human, human excellence and pushing the envelope. So thank you very much. So where's your social media, Michael? Where they go to go to your company?
- [85:55]
Michael Pack
Well, they can go to our websites, which is palladiumpictures.com which is our current films and our older films like Admiral Rick Ever is on the manifold productions website, manifoldproductions.com my own social media is michaelpack and I encourage your people to come and we also have a training program for Young conservative filmmakers, which I encourage all your viewers and listeners to get filmmakers they know to apply to.
- [86:31]
Steve Bannon
Perfect. And why Michael Pack is one of my heroes, because for three years, he stood the endurance test of Mitch McConnell. These people torturing him and the media torturing him. As he stood as a nominee for President Trump to take over, essentially Voice of America and the entire global platform. He had every opportunity to quit. He would not quit, no matter how much they tore him apart. He says, I'm not going to do this. If we fold. If I personally fold. If I personally fold, they'll kill everybody. Right? And I'm going to stand in here. And that is. I remember you saying he is a moral hero, sir.
- [87:03]
Michael Pack
I remember you saying, you didn't think I had it in me, Steve. And I didn't think I had it in me either. But when push comes to shove, you have to. Either you're. You back down and you're humiliated or you stand up. I mean, it's just. It's. Maybe it is my mild version of that, of that hour of testing, you know, who knows what you're going to do? But right.
- [87:26]
Steve Bannon
No, no, no. You came through the test. There's. Hey, in that first term, there were so many people that quit and just said, I can't take it. I'm a drop nomination. You said, I'm not going to do it. Three years. I think it's the longest outstanding denomination that. Three years and three months. The longest, I think, outstanding nomination to ever be confirmed eventually in the history of the country. You stood in the breach, dude. You're a hero. You're one of the toughest hombres because you've been tested. You came through the test of fire, sir. Appreciate you being on here today, Michael.
- [87:55]
Michael Pack
Thank you.
- [87:56]
Steve Bannon
Thank you, brother. He's one of the giants, right? He was a pack. Every opportunity to stand down and no, I'm not going to do it. President Trump nominated me. I'm going to stick out. I don't care how they destroy me. And, man, that is the enduring moment. Captain Sadler, you wrote a book on a couple books, one amazing book on naval strategy. You've also been a nuclear submarine officer. I just want to ask you. We're going to go to break here in a couple of minutes. The Navy, I argue, in the 12 Day War and the total obliteration part, the expeditionary force that we sent, that had the great, you know, B2 bombers, the stealth bombers, and coming in and blowing up the caves and the things. It was the good old United States Navy and submarines and Tomahawk missiles that took down, I don't know, 40% of the apparatus. What do you think about that? It's still the Navy. When you want to land a blow, you know the Navy's going to be there, sir.
- [88:49]
Michael Pack
Absolutely.
- [88:50]
Steve Bannon
And if you want to keep landing those blows at a distance, it's the Navy is really the only one that can do it. The Air Force can surge, but again, even coming half a world away, it takes a long time, it takes a lot out of the aircraft and the people to do that. But a Navy, an aircraft carrier or an SSGN submarine with over 100 cruise missiles ready, that's a kind of firepower that you can sustain for more than just a day. We got about a minute before we go to break. You wrote a book on naval strategy for the 21st century. Do you think that people on Capitol Hill understand the importance of the United States Navy in not just the defense but the projection of American power? Yeah, I think they do. But it wasn't something that just happened overnight. As soon as I cut my lines to the Navy and retired in the summer of 2020, I could actually start talking with my inside voice outside and at my perch up here in Capitol Hill, I started engaging aggressively. And I'd have to say after a few years, it's pretty clear that folks understand that a strong Navy is not a partisan issue, it's an American issue. They understand that what keeps our economy humming safely and securely and also keeps our interest in American people safe is having that ability to reach out and touch the bad guys wherever and wherever they think they're hiding. And the Navy is the best way to do that without having to pull the trigger most times, but took a lot of effort to get to that point. Laws and legislations acknowledging that title 10 changes in the last few years, but there's still too much work to be done at this late stage, as China's really on the clock to be ready to take us on in 2027. Wow. Captain, hang around. We're going to talk about that in 2027 as kind of an inflection point. We're here at Navy250. The President, the United States, the commander in chief is heading towards Norfolk Naval Station. Jack Posobic's with him. One o'. Clock. We're going to have a naval gunfire exercise. We're going to have some speeches before then. Short commercial break Back in the War Room. Just a moment.
- [90:58]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250. Sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor, Bright Birch Gold Group for standing with Rav. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and Freedom. We want to thank our sponsor, Patriot Mobile for standing with Rav.
- [91:29]
Steve Gruber
President, according to your plan, the Palestinian.
- [91:32]
Steve Bannon
Authority may control Gaza the day after Hamas. Now, can you please explore what is the purpose by doing this if according to Israel, they are paying to terrorists, they're paying salaries to terrorists who are with who you with, son of 14? Israel. My name is Libby.
- [91:46]
Cleo Pascal
Well, it's a great deal for Israel and it's a great deal for everybody. And you want to get your hostages back, right? You want them back or do you.
- [91:52]
Steve Bannon
Not want them back?
- [91:54]
Cleo Pascal
And it's a great deal for Israel, It's a great deal for the entire Arab world, Muslim world and world. So we're very happy about.
- [92:01]
Steve Bannon
Thank you so much. When do you think the hostages will start being freed?
- [92:04]
Cleo Pascal
I think very soon. They're in negotiation right now, as we speak. They've started the negotiation. It'll last a couple of days. We'll see how it turns out. But I'm hearing it's going very well.
- [92:16]
Are you open to extending the Affordable Care act subsidies?
- [92:20]
We want to fix it so it works. It's not working. Obamacare has been a disaster for the people. So we want, want to have it fixed so it works. We're going to look at that. It was amazing. Portland is burning to the ground. It's insurrectionists all over the place. It's antifa. And yet the politicians who are petrified, look, the politicians are afraid for their lives. That's the only reason that they say, like, there's nothing happening. And you've seen it. The place is burning down and they pretend like there's nothing happening. So we'll take a look at the order. We haven't seen the order yet.
- [92:58]
Steve Gruber
You're going to celebrate the Navy today.
- [93:00]
Cleo Pascal
The Navy is deployed in the Caribbean against the cartels.
- [93:03]
Steve Bannon
What is the next step of this.
- [93:05]
Cleo Pascal
War against drug trafficking in South America?
- [93:07]
Well, we're going to stop drug trafficking and we've done a lot. There's nobody. There's nobody coming in on the water that I can tell you. The water is like, there's nobody. There's no drugs coming in the water, of the water. And we'll take a look at what phase two is. Made a big difference. We have very little. We don't need flexibility because everybody's pretty much agreed to it. But there'll always be some changes. But the Hamas plan, I tell you, it's amazing. You're going to have peace. If you think about it, peace in the Middle east for the first time in, they say, really 3,000 years. So I'm very honored to be a big part of that. Look, they've been fighting for a plan for years. We get the hostages back almost immediately. Negotiations are going on right now, will probably take a couple of days, and people are very happy about it. Well, if they put judges like that on, I wasn't served well by the people that pick judges. I can tell you things like that are just too bad. I appointed the judge. Judge, and he goes like that. So I wasn't served well. Obviously, I don't know the judge, but if he made that kind of a decision. Portland is burning to the ground. You have agitators, insurrectioners. All you have to do is look at the. Look at the television, turn on your television, read your newspapers. It's burning to the ground. The governor, the mayor, the politicians are petrified for their lives. Judge like that, he ought to be. That judge ought to be ashamed of.
- [95:04]
Steve Bannon
You say you're targeting the worst of the worst. But Governor Pushburg said that most of the people.
- [95:08]
Cleo Pascal
I have taken.
- [95:12]
Steve Bannon
No criminal conviction.
- [95:13]
Michael Pack
So which is it?
- [95:14]
Cleo Pascal
He's wrong, number one. He's wrong, number two. I really believe he's afraid for his life somehow. When you can have 40 or 50 people killed over the last couple of months, hundreds of people wounded. There's no place like that in the world. Hundreds of people wounded. 50, 55 people shot and killed. And Pritzker gets up and says what a wonderful place it is. They need help. Washington D.C. is now a safe place. You're not going to get mugged or hit. You're not going to get raped. You're not going to get anything. Washington, Washington D.C. went from a hellhole to a safe place. I love the way you nod. Is it true, though, these people. A lot of the people right here were. Wait. A lot of the people right here were mug reporters. And you know what? You're safe now. Nothing. We've had no crime. It took 12 days to solve the problem. 12 days. And we're going to do that in Chicago. We're going to do that in Portland. Now, Portland is different. That's a bunch of paid insurrectionists. But you have a lot of paid people in Chicago. Do I believe the politicians are under threat? Because there's no way somebody can say that things are wonderful in Chicago. Almost 55. I think it was. 55 people over a short period of time have been murdered in Chicago. Have been shot, 222 people over a short period of time have been hit, have been wounded, not died, but 55 people died over a short period of time. You're telling me there's no city in the world like that. We're going to straighten it out. And I think that Pritzker, he's not a stupid person. I think that Pritzker is afraid for his life. Obamacare, subsidies, we want to make it better.
- [97:07]
Steve Bannon
What happens? Layoff.
- [97:10]
Cleo Pascal
Well, they're done. I call them Democrat layoffs. They're Democrat layoffs. They're causing it. We're ready to go back. You know, we have a record setting economy, we have a record setting country. Prices are way down. We're doing better than the country's ever done. And the Democrats hate seeing that. It's up to them. Anybody laid off, that's because of the Democrats. Thank you.
- [97:40]
Alex De Grasse
States.
- [97:40]
Steve Bannon
That was his gaggle before he took Marine One to, to there. I think he's waiting for the first lady to join him to Andrews Air Force Base. The president now is, I think it's close to arriving in Norfolk, the Norfolk Naval Station there. President, the first Lady. We'll watch that. I'm gonna go momentarily live to Steve Gruber. Like I said, they're going to be some talks, I think around 1220. Ambassador Monica Crowley, who's also in charge of overseeing America 250, is in charge of, I think with Justin Caporo of doing Navy 250, which is today. There's the first lady and the president getting on Marine One and doing a fantastic, just an amazing job. Do we have Gruber? Ambassador Monica Crowley's gonna say a few words, I think around 12:20, 12:30, gonna be joined by two Navy SEALs. We're there with Steve Gruber right now. Steve Gruber, what do you got for us.
- [98:48]
Steve Gruber
Mr. Bannon? I got Jason Redmond here with me. He is a wounded warrior, retired Navy seal, served in Afghanistan, Iraq. Jason, thank you for being here today.
- [98:57]
Steve Bannon
Steve.
- [98:58]
Jason Redmond
Honored. What an amazing thing to be a part of.
- [99:00]
Steve Gruber
What an amazing thing. You've got the Purple Heart there on your lapel. Obviously you've been in some tough spots. You've got New York Times bestsellers, but even so, what an amazing thing. Tell us what comes to mind when you look around here.
- [99:12]
Jason Redmond
Well, it's a lot of what I'm getting ready to deliver in this speech I'm going to deliver. And my speech is really written for all these sailors. You know, I grew up looking at the history. My grandfather served In World War II, my dad served in Vietnam. And then moving forward, it was naturally for me to choose this life of service, but really, this is a celebration of the amazing history of the Navy. From the beginning of our inception, the Revolutionary War, we beat the greatest naval might in the world, you know, the British fleet at that time. And we've carried that forward over two, you know, for 250 years. Well, now the challenge is, how do we maintain that supremacy? How do we encourage these young sailors to understand you are laying the foundation for the next 250 years.
- [99:59]
Steve Gruber
An absolute inspiration to talk to this man. Obviously, you paid a price. Clearly, you paid a price. You have no regrets from what I can tell here.
- [100:06]
Jason Redmond
No, I am so thankful for the service I had. I talk about this. I literally serve with some of the legends of the 911 generation. My story is part of the 250 year history. The things I was able to do, hitting targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificing brothers in this war, that's all part of the fabric that makes the Navy great. And that's what we're celebrating here. Not only that, to showcase to the world we have one of the greatest military forces in the world. There's a little bit of a narrative, oh, is the military getting weak? The answer is no. And with this new focus on, hey, we are the Department of War, we need to be lethal. Our sailors, our Marines, they need to understand that. And that is the focus. And I think what President Trump wants to showcase.
- [100:52]
Steve Gruber
Let me ask you something about that. Because Pete Hegseth show up at an event here over the last couple of days, they just flocked to him, to the military personnel. If you listen to left wing media, you'd think that he was a disliked individual. I'm not feeling that from you.
- [101:07]
Jason Redmond
Well, I have an inside track. I'm friends with Pete. I worked with them with the Concerned Veterans for America tour. When they tried to tear Pete down and say he did this and he did that, I was there. So I didn't see that. Pete understands that the military is about war. At the end of the day, make no mistake, we achieve peace by being in a strong posture to execute war if it comes. None of us want war. But I think what the secretary understands is we must train for war. And the stronger we are, the more capable we are, the more lethal we are. Our adversaries, it makes them afraid and it makes them question, should I engage, should I press against the United States? That's what we're showing here. Secretary Hegseth understands that.
- [101:53]
Steve Gruber
Jason Redmond tell the folks who maybe are hearing your name or seeing you for the first time, your story, your personal story a little bit.
- [102:00]
Jason Redmond
I'm super blessed. Joined the Navy in 1992. Both pre 911 so I got to experience that. Conducted counter drug operation Central South America. Got a commission right down the street here. Become a young SEAL officer. Made some mistakes which is part of my journey growing up understanding what it is to lead Iraq or Afghanistan. Then Iraq. Severely wounded Iraq, shot eight times by an enemy machine gun. All my life to my teammates and some of the crew, the Navy doctors and nurses. But got another name for myself of resilience and overcoming with a sign I posted on my door today. Author, huge veteran advocate. I want to make sure our veterans are taking care of. I want to make sure our military is taken care of. Part of a tech company, Turbo Vets, revolutionizing the way we take care of our veterans. All these things, that's my heart and soul.
- [102:50]
Steve Gruber
And taking care of marriages in the American family, you care about that too.
- [102:53]
Steve Bannon
Amen. Yeah.
- [102:54]
Jason Redmond
Our book Mission Invincible Marriage focused on how do we help our, our service members understand that you can have both.
- [103:02]
Steve Gruber
God bless America. Jason Redmond.
- [103:03]
Steve Bannon
Hey Jason. An honor to be here today. Steve, just ask Jason to stick around. We're gonna take a short commercial break at the top of the hour. I got a couple of questions for him when we get back. Navy250, the commander in Chief of the United States is headed to Norfolk Naval Station right now a land momentarily. We've got activity on the USS Truman and we're gonna have a lot of activity on the USS Bush out at the naval gunfire range off the Virginia Capes. We're gonna explain it all to you, including the Battle of the Virginia Capes when we return in the war room.
- [103:56]
Announcer
We'll be right back with more Navy 250, sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with Rav. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Birch Gold Group for standing with Rav.
- [104:29]
Steve Bannon
It is Sunday the 5th of October in the year of our Lord 2025, a very special day. Navy 250, the commander in Chief is heading to Norfolk Naval Station to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States Navy, which took place by the continental Congress on the 13th of October, 1775. Yes, that would be correct. I don't know, eight or nine months before the Declaration of Independence because guess what? The revolutionary generation understood they were in A gunfight from Lexington Commons and Concord Bridge to the Battle of Bunker Hill. A couple of months later, they realized two things. We need an army, we need a Navy. And then shortly thereafter, they said, we need a Marine Corps. Right, like the Royal Marines to help man the ships of the United States Navy. First question, Steve grew. If you asked Jason what was his rank and talk to us about understanding he started as an enlistment and finished as an officer, how did that work?
- [105:25]
Steve Gruber
Jason, Steve wants to know how your progression and rank went, where you got into the Navy, how you ended up being a Navy seal, how you ended up in the position you were in.
- [105:34]
Jason Redmond
Yeah, I started out right here in Virginia Beach. I went through a school at. Damn. I was a young enlisted kid. 1992, headed out to SEAL training on the West Coast. 1995, came back to the east coast, got my commission. I went to Old Dominion University as part of the Seaman Admiral program. Came back as a young seal officer after 911 had happened, and then started deploying straight into the war.
- [105:57]
Steve Gruber
And you went to this, you went to the school out in San Diego, went through the whole deal?
- [106:01]
Jason Redmond
That's right, yeah. Bud's training for all seals younger. There was a period of time we did SEAL training both coasts in the 60s and 70s. But after the 70s, anybody who goes through SEAL training happens out in of search San Diego.
- [106:13]
Steve Gruber
So there's the progression of how he got educated. Steve, I know you also wanted to ask about this. He wanted to ask about the fact that. Go ahead, Steve.
- [106:27]
Steve Bannon
Steve Hanger, one second. We're just. Hold right there. We're going to go to. I think the President's landing. Let's go ahead and go. Let's jump. Just stop. Let's go. Steve Gruber, real quickly, how did. How do you end up fighting in Afghanistan?
- [106:50]
Steve Gruber
And real quickly, Steve Bannon wants to know how you end up fighting in Afghanistan. It's a long way from water.
- [106:56]
Jason Redmond
Well, for many, SEAL is an acronym that stands for sea, air and land. So we are trained to operate in any environment. Obviously, when the nation calls upon us, it's one of the SEALs job to find, fix and finish the enemy. The enemy was in Afghanistan and we found them and finished them.
- [107:13]
Steve Gruber
Find, fix and finish.
- [107:14]
Jason Redmond
That's right. And that's one of the great things. I'll speak about that.
- [107:17]
Steve Gruber
What a.
- [107:18]
Jason Redmond
What a historic moment. I wasn't on the bin Laden raid, but I had friends on that mission. What a culmination of the 911 generation to take out Osama bin Laden.
- [107:27]
Steve Gruber
And God bless you at the. Thank you for standing watch for all of us and the work you did.
- [107:31]
Jason Redmond
Amen. My honor.
- [107:33]
Steve Gruber
It was an honor, Steve. No question. Seen by a man like this.
- [107:36]
Steve Bannon
All right. What a.
- [107:37]
Steve Gruber
What a day.
- [107:38]
Steve Bannon
Amen. One of our heroes, one of our patriots. Thank you so much. Lieutenant Jason Redmond. Let's go. Do we have now, is the President going to land? We're going to juggle a few things. Okay, let's bring it. Do we have Alex De Grasse? Let's get Alex DeGrasse. By the way, Ambassador Monica Crowley is going to take the stage momentarily. We got the Navy SEALs that are going to make presentations. De Grasse, we're going. The President, the commander in chief is going off the Virginia Capes today to participate in a naval gunfire exercise that we're going to see multiple types of Navy warfare. Walk us through. Why. Why is it ironic that we're going to the Virginia Capes today, given how important that is in the history and the freedom of our country? Sir.
- [108:22]
Alex De Grasse
Thanks, Steve. Well, it's huge. I think the battles of the Cape or the Battle of the Chesapeake is probably the most important turning point in the Revolutionary War. And it's something that's not really spoken or taught a lot about, which is kind of interesting. The key was that it was this, a set piece naval battle between the French Admiral de Grasse, that flute that came up from Haiti in the West Indies, he had been coordinating with, you know, General Washington, who had been for three years understanding. And I did want to rewind after we get through this top line and walk through that, hey, the key to victory is going to be a combined naval and army engagement. Depend the British. He understood that he had been pleading with the French after they aligned with us that, hey, we needed, we need a decisive set piece battle. And we get. I'll explain through the campaigns in Virginia why it all led to this battle at Yorktown where Cornwallis was holed up and then under siege by General Lafayette, the French general who's also commanding a combined American army unit. But it, you know, the French fleet really is what defeated the British that were coming down from New York and then prevented them from relieving Cornwallis either with reinforcements or having him be able to retreat. And so if I can't see for a couple minutes, I think just kind of leading up into the Revolution. War of Lane. Okay, that's, that's good. So we all know, important to remind everyone. April 19, 1775. The war starts when British troops went to seize the armaments. Right. So the first attempt, you know, when we think of the importance of the second Amendment, that's the shot heard around the world, obviously. Then the colonists besieged Boston, where the British were held up. And once we took the cannons from Ticonderoga and we fortified Dorchester Hill, again you see the importance of the navy. The British were forced to flee Boston using their ships. Most went to Nova Scotia. Someone decked down in New York was, you know, obviously somewhat of a victory. And then again, the importance of the naval power this side. On the British side, they landed over 30,000 troops in New York and totally crushed us in Long island and in Manhattan, George Washington fleeing down in New Jersey. There were obviously some engagements, certainly the Christmas attack on Trenton. So somewhat of a moral victory. And that was sort of gets us through 1776. In 1777, you've got the grand strategy the British had, which is they were trying to divide and conquer and cut off Steve, obviously, New England, which is where the heart of the Revolution and where they were producing a lot of arms and recruits and then sort of the rest of the colony. So Howe was supposed to, I think, move up from. From New York. You had troops marching down from Montreal and Quebec, as well as troops moving from Erie to converge in Saratoga, thanks to the Patriots, both in Oriskanies to bleed the British army moving from the west. The New York army never made it up. And then the army was obviously soundly defeated at Saratoga, which is one of the most at that point in historic battle that brings the French into play, Steve. Benjamin Franklin and Washington and all these folks in the Continental Congress were desperate, obviously, really, because they needed a navy, a real navy. Of course, we had the American navy, but we need to shift to the line. We needed to be able to stop the British free flow of troops up along the coast. And that was really key. So at this point, after Saratoga, the French say, hey, I think they think we could win this. They get on board, they give money, troops, they give a navy. And that was huge, okay? And so that gets us into 1778, okay? And also, the Spanish got involved, the Dutch later in 1780, and this really became a world war. So I think that's important for everyone to understand. The surrender of the Battle of Saratoga, I think, was the largest single surrender of British troops or the first time on foreign soil in the empire that they had, you know, sort of imploded. So at this point, now they're getting kind of frustrated because there's kind of a stalemate in the north. So the British then call that they pivot. To a Southern strategy, okay. Betting on loyalist support down in the Carolinas and Georgia and want to sort of cut off the Americans down there. Okay. They took Savannah, then they took Charleston in 1780, and I think that was the largest American defeat in the entire War. Over 5,000 captured. Cornwallis, then takes command and crushed Horatio Gates. I mean, probably the second biggest defeat at Camden. Washington pulls him, puts in Nathaniel Greene. But most importantly for the MAGA down there, who love this part of the history, you've got all these partisans, all this guerrilla warfare, you know, Francis Marion, Thomas Sunter, eventually the Over Mountain boys, which are the Appalachian guys, they march, I think, over 400 miles from Tennessee through the Blue Mounds and crushed the Loyalists, I think, at Kings Mountain or Guilford Courthouse at the start of 1781. Okay. All of these guerrilla engagements sort of bled the British, who sort of abandoned their Carolina strategy at the time in the south and moved to Virginia. Okay, so a lot of specifics here, but all this is kind of leading into this set piece battle. Okay, where Lafayettes now the French are on the ground with about 5,000 men, Steve, and, and working. And I mean, there was Americans under the French command on the ground at this point. Washington's in the north. They're sort of shadowing New York. And the French have Rushambeau up there as well with a large army. And the British are mostly housed in New York and they develop this strategy to say, hey, let's trap them in Chesapeake. And they're talking to Admiral Degrasse with these fast frigates, which is crazy thing, but he's in west indies with about 20 ships, okay? A little more than 20, 25 ships, okay. They sailed to the Chesapeake. The British maybe think he's going to go there. They send their fleet down. They don't see the French. They go back to New York. At this time, the Lafayette and, sorry, Rush Ambeau and George Washington are March, I think, 400 miles from New York down towards Yorktown, where Lafayette is starting to engage Cornwallis. Admiral degrasse gets there first, goes in the Chesapeake, starts unloading. Brings about 4,000 additional French troops, which is huge. Three and a half thousand, I think, from the Caribbean. And now they're engaged in this. Out of nowhere, Steve, they get surprised and the British Navy appears. They've got about. I wrote this down. I think they had 19 chips. So they had less. Yeah, there you go. 19 ships from the British. Out of nowhere, Degrasse sees this. He's got, I think about 24. That's right. Ships of the line. So these are big ships. This is like the first really set piece naval battle. And Degrasse panics and actually quickly loads the troops up and the, the sailors and they go out quickly. Some of the ships were not even fully manned and missing like 100, 200 people. And there was a good opportunity for Graves, who's the British commander, to engage and probably crush the French since they were not organized. They had the wind as, as you know, I forget that that term and I send a picture to, to Cameron. But you've got the, you've got. This was like a historic, I mean, like the old, you know, they got two converging lines. The British and the French fighting in like old style, lining up single line and the start of the lines engage fully and it gets to the middle. The British take more casualties. The French take some casualties as well, but sort of sustain and for the next couple of days, they're sort of cat and mouse. At this time. An additional French fleet from Rhode island that had about nine ships were bringing siege cannons and entrenchment tools and, and other supplies from the French from Rhode island. Get there, they were already back in the bay. So at this point, the British realized, hey, now they've got over about 30 ships. They're outnumbering them almost 2 to 1. So they flee back to New York. French are able to land, bring more troops. Washington arrives, Lafayette, they fire them across the bay and they trap the British in Yorktown, forcing the surrender and forcing the entire war to end. Steve. So hopefully that wasn't too much or too fast for folks, but that's sort of a topic.
- [116:21]
Steve Bannon
Fabulous.
- [116:23]
Captain Jim Fennell
I studied this.
- [116:24]
Steve Bannon
Hang around. Yeah, you're directly related to the, one of the heroes, if not the hero, the Battle of the Virginia Capes. President Trump's going to be out there today in a naval gunfire exercise. Everything you have, you have the great naval air, you have submarine flight forces who have surface warfare. The true naval officers, I might add. Just kidding. Short break. Back in the war room in just a moment.
- [116:57]
Announcer
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