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Joe
Hey.
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Joe
Just put Texas in play if Paxson in fact wins. But let's take it a step further because you know, people always say to me, Joe, you're playing not seven dimensional layered chess. You're like nine or ten or eleven. Let's take it beyond that. Not only do they put Texas in play and give Talarico a shot to make it competitive by putting up that runaway beer truck right there that you're looking at, but that runaway beer truck up and wanting him to win the Senate if he beats Cornyn. And he most likely will beat Cornyn. With Trump's endorsement in Texas, you now have millions and millions of dollars that would have been spent elsewhere being spent to try to save a seat that Cornyn could have. Probably 1, 2, 3, 4 points. But not only that, look what Bill Cassidy did yesterday. He voted with Murkowski and others on the War Powers Resolution. So now you're going to have him. You're likely going to have John Cornyn. You're likely going to have other Thom Tillis. You're likely going to have other senators. Thank you, Senator Bill Cassidy.
Political Commentator
Such courage.
Joe
Such courage. I wish you would have shown it for RFK Jr. But anyway, you know what? I'm a Southern Baptist. We take converts and we can get them. Even if it's the 15th verse of just As I Am. You're welcome into the family. Thank you. God bless you. And now go and send no more but here we are. Think about it. You're going to have three, four, five senators that are on their way out, John, that are going to pretty much stop a great deal of what Donald Trump does because they're unchained these generic ballot tests and them getting the news that it's likely they're going to have to throw millions and millions of dollars into a Texas race with Ken Paxton that they wouldn't if John Cornyn won.
Political Commentator
Yeah, well, the problem with being in a vice, Joe, is even when you know you're in a vice, you're in a vice and you have a hard time getting out of it, you know, and who knows? Look, maybe, maybe this slush fund will end up compensating Jim Comey and Letitia James, and then they can say, listen, we were serious about this anti weaponization thing. But otherwise, and you know, maybe they'll refer to the ballroom as a job screening program. There's a lot of construction there. Absent all of that, these are, as you have mentioned, really big problems for Republicans. And they know this. All right? They are saying this in very subtle, careful ways, which actually is a big deal when you look at how, you know, Congress has been functioning in this second Trump presidency. But as I reported for the Dispatch in a story that posted earlier this week, Trump's power in Republican primaries is such that when the first order of business to keep your job is winning renomination, you don't feel, and it's kind of true, that there's not much you can do. And for instance, I talked to one Republican strategist who told me that when they test issues for candidates in Republican primaries to see what's going to move them ahead, various standard conservative issues will move you up by 20 points. The Trump endorsement, if you test it, if this candidate had the Trump endorsement, this candidate has a Trump endorsement that moves you up by 50 points. There is no single better way to win a Republican nomination or to avoid defeat than to say that the president is on your side. And so that's where these guys find themselves. I will say one thing about Texas because I can't help myself. And as I said last week, I'm just going to be wrong one day. I've been covering Texas for two decades. It's the big red whale and it's really hard for Democrats to flip. Do not, do not expect, if they're being honest and if they're going to stick to this, don't expect party and party affiliated organizations to spend a dime there. What they're telling me is that Trump has plenty of money. All of his groups, you've got about 350 to $400 million, depending on how you count it. And since he has the money and since, as one Republican insider told me, you broke it, you bought it, they're going to say, this is your project. We have more important, more pressing needs in North Carolina and Maine and everywhere else. But it is going to be tough for Talarico even with, even with Paxton, who I like to say is carrying around a 10 piece luggage set of scandal just because of the lean there. But it is now in play. I wouldn't say Talaria is favored, but this thing is in play and it cannot be ignored.
Political Analyst
Joey, one can't predict the future, but if you look at what Thom Tillis has done, that should be a reasonable indication of what Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn may now do. Both of whom frankly have been, you know, constrained severely over the course of the last year and a half by their fear of precisely this thing that has now happened to them, happening to them. Neither one of them is MAGA in their heart. Both of them have in the past, the distant past, but the past, you know, maybe four, five, six years ago been willing to go against the President on matters of importance. But they have basically put themselves under wraps, put their principles under wraps, put any instinct they had towards independence or moderation under wraps in order to try to get Donald Trump to be on their side in the primaries. Instead of being on their side, the primaries, he turned against them, has now turned against John Cornyn. And I think, Joe, in the end, you know, that race, of all the things that Trump has exhibited this kind of power in the, over the past few weeks, from Indiana to Louisiana now to Thomas Massie seat where he's flexing his muscle and proving to people that he still continues to have this vice like grip over the Republican Party. And he does. But the biggest story of the day yesterday is the possibility that Donald Trump has just, if not given away, has certainly made the Texas Senate seat competitive in a way that, that would have been competitive probably even if Cornyn had won the race. But if Ken Paxton wins the primary, Texas is not just in play, but there's an argument that James Tallard goes the favorite there. That could be ball game for the United States Senate, given what we're seeing in terms of the national polling and the number of Senate seats now that were supposed to be safe, that are now in play where Democrats feel pretty strong. This could be like, that's the big News of yesterday on the political front is that Paxton endorsement.
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Stephen K. Bannon
So maybe after I do this, I'll go to Israel, run for prime minister.
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Stephen K. Bannon
So that's good. Wednesday, the 20th of May, the year of our Lord 2026, just when things are going on. President Trump on the tarmac right there. We get a couple of more terms to go here. Don't get ahead of the. Don't get ahead of the program. Welcome. We're going to have to juggle Today. There's a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee with many of the people you see here on War Room all the time about the Southern Poverty Law Center. Tyler o' Neill from the Daily Signal, the guy that wrote the great book is doing this amazing reporting. He's going to Testify. Our own Dr. Carol Swain will testify. She knows Southern Priory Law center has been on it for years, if not decades. In many others, Tony Perkins is going to testify. Many people we're going to dip in and out of that as the morning progresses. And we'll have a highlight reel also. The president states the reason it was at Andrews Air Force Base. I don't like that. Joint Base Andrews, Andrews Air Force Base. President Trump is going to the Coast Guard Academy. He's going to give the commencement address approximately 11 o'. Clock. We're obviously going to cut to that. Caroline Wren, here's I, I just want to make sure we frame this. The reason we play these cold opens. But on this one, the lazy reporting. First off, Caroline Wren, a hat tip to you. You were on yesterday and all the work you had done and you came up and worked with Ken Pax on this amazing construct which is going to go down as one of the boldest bets ever in American political history, where a guy bets his entire career knowing the guy across him is a total phony. Right. But bets his whole career. When you came up with this idea of, you know, Ken Paxton would drop out if, if Cornyn committed to get the Save America act passed, it was just genius. The strategically just incredible. But you were on the show yesterday. We're talking about Cornyn's actually saying it's not going to, you know, the ship had sailed. We were actually quite excited about the fact that looked like it was not going to be an endorsement. And then President Trump, as soon as you leave, we cut to basically President Trump outside the ballroom. And he did this for the fact that he picked up the Hill newspaper in the morning, in the first three stories or all the United States Senate just telling President Trump, no, we're not going to do the ballroom, we're not going to do the weaponization, we're not going to do Save America, we're not going to put it to a must pass bill. Tough luck. We're the Senate. You know, we have to have institutional prerogatives. And after the hour, which is magnificent, he just is just classic Trump riffing. He just drops a bomb. Yeah. You know, I'm going back in at 12:30, I'm going to announce an endorsement in the Texas race. Talk to me what your last 24 hours have been like, ma'. Am.
Caroline Ran
Yeah, well, as soon as President Trump announced that he was going to be endorsing in the race, I immediately thought, you know, I was thinking to myself, like, it's going to be Paxton. There's no way. Over the last 72 hours like these, the only people that were lobbying for a Cornyn endorsement were other GOP senators. And in the last 72 hours, the GOP senators had come out against President Trump on several things. They told him, we're not passing the Save America act, we're not going to nuke the filibuster, we're not going to fund your ballroom. The weaponization fund's a bad idea, and we're not going to fire the parliamentarian. Even yesterday morning, I think around like 10:30 or 11, Thune was asked about the weaponization fund and he attacked President Trump and said, this is a bad idea. Where if you're Thune, the smarter thing to say, you should have said, that's a decision for the executive branch. I'm focused on the legislative agenda and getting this passed an easy out for you. Instead, he went out of his way to attack Trump. And that's why, you know what? Trump, I think just said, screw you guys. I've asked you for several things over the last even week, months. You haven't gotten any of it done. And now every story, see today is how the Senate Republicans are going to obstruct President Trump's midterm agenda. Now because they're angry at him. I'm like, okay, what are they going to do? Not pass the same America act, not do recess appointments, not nuke the filibuster, not fund the ballroom, not fire the parliamentarian, because spoiler alert, they've already done that. So I don't really know the agenda that they are now going to block that they weren't already blocking Isn't the time now?
Stephen K. Bannon
I mean, look, Dune continues to wind to President Trump. I don't have 60 votes. I don't have 51 votes. Isn't it time? We do have 27 votes. Isn't it time We've got to make a decision now. We can't wait and let this linger. The Senate is treating President Trump as a lame duck. And now that they're going to have Cassidy and Cornyn and some of these other retreads that are not going anywhere, you're going to see how bad. You're going to see their true colors are really going to come out. Isn't it time to forcefully make some changes in the leadership in the Senate? Otherwise it's just going to drag through the summer. Here's my fear is that you're going to have places like Georgia, you know, Ossoff is going to win there by three or four points. They got another, they got a runoff right now with Kemp's guy. This Kemp did this is all Kemp doing it with the duly guy who seems like a good football coach, but he's not ready for primetime as U.S. senate. You got Ossoff. You're going to have an issue in Ohio, North Carolina. Where are you going to get, you know, crushed there? The Senate is giving away the Senate, not President Trump. But we can save the Senate as we've saved the House with redistricting, at least given us a shot to make that final argument, you know, between now and election Day and hopefully hold the House by one or two seats. Don't we have to do, don't we have to make dramatic changes and make it today, this weekend in the Senate?
Caroline Ran
Well, to save the Senate and pass President Trump's agenda, you need to nuke the filibuster period and stop. And that, that saves the midterms, too. They can actually pass President Trump's agenda. They could pass the agenda that the American people voted overwhelmingly for President Trump to go and do. And it is being obstructed by this ridiculous 60 vote threshold that is not in the Constitution. It is a ridiculous rule. The Democrats have said they're going to blow it up. And it is Republicans who are obstructing that agenda and hurting the midterms. And the problem is, if you remember, the person who ran against Thune for majority leader was John Cornyn. And, and I know people always tell me, well, Caroline, Rick Scott ran too well. Rick Scott got third place in that and I love Rick Scott, would love to see him as majority leader. But Rick Scott has openly said that we need to nuke the filibuster. And there are enough Republican senators that are just obsessed with, you know, preserving this institution of which the Democrats across the aisle are not planning to preserve. So I just, I don't know how Rick Scott would get the votes. I think the vote for majority leader, like, purely comes down to preserving this filibuster, unfortunately, in this caucus. And so I don't know who you would replace Thune with, but Thune I think is definitely, I thought he did a pretty good job in the first year. He was much more passive and deferential to President Trump and his agenda than certainly Mitch McConnell was. And then all of a sudden, over the past few months, I've just watched Thune continuously just poke at President Trump over silly things, things that you can privately fight with him about if you disagree with it. But to run to the press and run to your friends at Jake Sherman and others and just trash the leader of our party and Trump is not what a good leader of the Senate should do. And so I just, I don't understand what it is that he's doing or why. And so does he maybe need to be replaced? Sure. But I don't know who you replace him with, who would be better at this point.
Stephen K. Bannon
But it's, but they, it'll come out. Here's the thing is that the reason that they played ball in the first year is they needed the big beautiful bill passed in the ndaa. The defense contractors, you know, run the deal up there, the defense industry. And, and you had to get the big beautiful bill. That's where he played ball. As soon as it was over, all of a sudden you saw the McConnell McConnell esque. It's not that we, the filibuster made sense until the radical Democrats have said they're going to pack the court. They're going to make D.C. estate, Puerto Rico a state. They've said this is what they're going to do the very first days. That's why you've got to go on offense. Anyway, Caroline, stick around. Short commercial break. We're in the war room. We're going to go to the Capitol Hill next.
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Stephen K. Bannon
Awesome.
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Caroline Ran
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Stephen K. Bannon
Here's your host, Stephen K. B. Philip Patrick's going to join us. We're also going to cut. Jamie Raskin is lighting people up about the Southern Poverty Law Center. What a lovely organization. Jim Rickards gonna try to get Rickards on here before the Memorial Day weekend. Rickardswarroom.com It's a landing page we have set up because we do these special deals with the folks. Rickardswarroom.com go there today strategic intelligence. He throws in a free book moneygpt what talks about fiat currency. That would be the United States dollar and artificial intelligence. Wow. Think you got. You can't sleep now. He's also got the chain of command. Artificial intelligence for letting off a nuclear weapon. I think it's chapter four. Make sure you read that before you go to bed. Recordsworm.com you get strategic. Excuse me. Rickards war room.com go there. It's the landing page. You get access to strategic intelligence which is based upon predictive analytics. Reason Jim is a legendary figure on Wall street and records. We're going to get him on Thursday or Friday. Check it out. Caroline ran. I want to go back to the laziness of the, you know, Morning Joe just phones it in. Right? The oh, you know this is going to be. And I think they call him a runaway beer truck. Do they call that? They call. They referred to Paxton so which I don't even get the analogy. But they're sitting there saying it's going to cost $300 million. First off the Senate leadership fund and these big talkers that giving all these anonymous quotes. Yeah, Trump's gonna have to do it. He broke it. He's gonna fix it. Put your frickin name on it. President Trump's gonna do what he's gonna do and he's gonna tell you guys what to do and you're gonna snap to attention and do it. All this big talk on these anonymous quotes is sickening. This is how gutless the senator. All the stories yesterday, nobody put their name on anything. That's they're, they're big talkers when they're anonymous. Okay. Oh yeah, Trump broke it. He's gonna fix it. Hey, President Trump's gonna do what he's gonna do, right? The powerful do what they want and the weak suffer what they must. So that's the Senate right now. That's what we gotta get serious about. These Guys, Cornyn would been the worst candidate. Cuz 10% of the grassroots know this guy's a phony. Know this guy hates Trump, know this guy hates maga. Know this guy's been open border, know this guy's been pro Islamic invasion on
Political Commentator
and on and on.
Stephen K. Bannon
And they weren't showing up to vote for him. So he was the guy that had the highest probability. But now it's all the grassroots fau fault, the MAGA movement's fault. Your thoughts about that, ma'?
Caroline Ran
Am? Yeah, I mean, just ask Senator Colin Allred or Senator Beto o' Rourke about how winnable Texas is. And the problem, the thing about the people like Morning Joe, they just talk in these echo chambers, right? They call their friends within the media, their, their political consultants they claim to talk to, or Chris Christie or like, you know, Karl Rove and these others that are absolutely. They haven't stepped foot in Texas. They have no clue where the Texas base is, so they just don't take them seriously at all. And again, the last time a Democrat won statewide in Texas was 1994. The last time they elected a Democrat senator in Texas was 1988. So almost four decades that this hasn't happened. And so Paxton has won twice statewide and he is absolutely electable. He is going to win. And this money argument, money cuts both ways. Because if you, if the Democrats choose to go spend in Texas, which I doubt that they will, they have, they have done that big red whale, you know, chase that before, wasted hundreds of millions on All Red and Better o', Rourke, they have to go spend. That is money. And let's say they do. Let's say they decide to go down that road and think they can be Paxton and go spend hundreds of millions in Texas. That is money that they are not spending in North Carolina or Maine or Michigan or Georgia. So the argument Republicans are making of, oh, now we're going have to go spend more is dumb because that means the Democrats have to go spend more additionally with the SLF money. I mean, Republicans already wasted $150 million on Cornyn. And the way that money works is money follows incumbents. And we all see these polls are ridiculous. They're always ridiculous. They show races like Texas, Ohio being tight up until the three weeks before, when all of a sudden the Republican runs away with it. Because that's how these pollsters make money. The Democrats fund way more phony polls. They always show that. Every poll I'd seen was showing Cordyn and Paxton tied with Talarico, which is ridiculous. But What I'm saying here is that if an incumbent is tied, then the incumbent can call John Thune and say, you need to spend more money here. And so with Paxton, they're not going to spend more money there. It frees up more money for other races when you have a non incumbent. And I think money only matters up until a certain point. And so I am certain that Ken Paxton is going to win this general election and this ridiculous game that the anonymous D.C. consultants who have not stepped foot in Texas, or frankly, they haven't stepped any foot anywhere outside of Nantucket, the hamptons and Washington, D.C. i don't really care what their anonymous quote is.
Stephen K. Bannon
If I want to go to South Carolina, the great job you have done there. Now, the House, Jordan Pace was on last night, I guess the third reading in the House, but that's pro forma. So the House is going to pass it. I understand it's only majority now, not 2/3 for the Senate, but they've got all kind of games they can play. Where do we stand in the Senate? I've seen on Twitter people going up with totally red maps in South Carolina. This is just not any district. This is James Clyburn. He's the head gangster. Right? This is not Benny Thompson or Cohen. They're important. But this is the main man. This is the guy that made Joe Biden. This is the guy that made Joe Biden the Democratic nominee to allow them to steal the 2020 election. Ma'. Am.
Caroline Ran
Yeah. Well, the House passed the redistricting bill late last night in South Carolina. And a surprise to no one, not a single Democrat voted yes, despite them spending the last two weeks telling the media how excited they were for this map because they would gain seats. And I kept calling them out saying, oh, if you're so excited, then I. Then I guess that the Democrats are going to vote yes. Of course, they all voted no. And, you know, shame on these Republican consultants who are echoing those talking points. It was, of course, a bluff. So now the bill has been sent over to the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee will take this up at 2:00pm today. President Alexander, the president of the South Carolina Senate, called the full Senate back at noon tomorrow, which tells me that he expects the Judiciary Committee to vote on it today, tonight, and to send it to the floor for final passage. So things are looking good right now with this bill in South Carolina. There are procedural games that could be played to try and delay and run out the clock. So far, we haven't seen them. So I remain very optimistic and hopeful that we are going to get a additional seat. And we will have to say goodbye to Jim Clyburn and his notorious fish fry, in which he would just extort presidential candidates in the Democratic Party every two years to pay off his family and consultants. So that's a big loss for the state.
Stephen K. Bannon
James, we hardly knew you. Georgia, of course, last, of course, yesterday, they played the games. Raffensberg and these guys played the games. You couldn't have any observers in the bunker, but the results down there, I think the people of Georgia spoke pretty loudly, particularly about Raffensperger and his crew. Ma'. Am.
Caroline Ran
Well, Brad Raffensperger came in a distant third place last night, which was amazing. That was my personal favorite loss last night. I look forward to him becoming the Bulwark contributor and I'm sure he'll be a frequent guest on Morning Joe with his excellent analysis of where the MAGA primary voters are. But you know, President Trump with 37 and oh in endorsements last night, it is just epic to watch what he is doing and just the hand that he could still play over this Republican, Republican base. And it's very important for his legacy that we get in real MAGA elected officials and people who can carry the torch and move forward. And so that was why beatings like that were so poetic and beautiful.
Stephen K. Bannon
I want to put something on your, I mean, you and I have talked about on the audience, I put it on the radar. But I really want to make sure people focus on this, the situation with Kemp in this establishment, which I think is embarrassing to the great state of Georgia, which is one of our greatest states with great patriots. This whole thing, again, dually in the race and dragging this thing out now, more money spent on a runoff. I'm telling you, Ossoff, if Ossoff wins Georgia, and right now I think Ossoff could win by two or three points because I think you had the same problem in Georgia. You got in, you've got in North Carolina. You've got a problem with the MAGA base being fired up to get this done. If Ossoff wins, Caroline, I think he goes to the top of the heap even more than Newsom for the Democratic nomination potentially in 2028. Your thoughts?
Caroline Ran
Yes, I think he's a leading contender. Ossoff is, I think he's a pretty strong candidate. He is very good at delivering the Democrat talking points and messaging. He's kind of good on the podcast scene and that sort of, he's a, he's a tricky candidate to be. But I think he will shoot to the top in the 2028 primaries for the Democrat Party now in Georgia, you know, I don't know what's going to happen in Georgia because what happens with people like the Raffenspergers and even Kemp if they don't get their candidate? We've seen what they do. They've struck the MAGA candidate. And so they'll instruct their people to either vote for Ossoff or, you know, not turn out. And this is like they accuse us or President Trump of not being team players. No, it is them who do that. And so that is what my fear is here and in Georgia, I think that President Trump has shown whoever he endorses wins. Like I expect that President Trump's endorsed candidates in Georgia are going to win. But now the problem is will Kemp and others, you know, work against those candidates and tell their people to stay home and that that is how Ossoff can pull off a victory?
Stephen K. Bannon
No, no, President Trump. Yeah, we could fire up the base and there's no doubt it's just confusion right now and dragging this thing out. But Ossoff has to. My point is you have to defeat Ossof. Now. He, I think would be the most competitive because he's obviously a radical Democrat, but he puts on. And particularly he's winning a Southern state. It's not like some guy coming from California. Right. And he, he handles himself very well with this. So he comes across to Southerners, he comes across the people as not the, you know, the radical that he is. That's why he's gotta be defeated in the Senate race. It's very important for Georgia to come together around this, come together around Collins and get serious about this. Because Dually, no shot that dually's gonna. He's just not done it. Doesn't have the skill set. Caroline, where do people follow you? You're. You're on fire. And your Twitter feed is Bomber Command. So where do we go?
Caroline Ran
It is at Caroline. Ran on X Truth Social and Getter.
Stephen K. Bannon
Thank you, ma'. Am. Magnificent work. Sean Spicer, Alex De Grasse, want to thank everybody that's been up on Twitter for this, for the reducing fights and everything with, with Ken Paxton and the team. We're going to have Glenn Story hopefully later in the show. Like I said, we're going to have to really do some juggling this morning. We got capital markets and the bond market to talk about the impact on your life. What to start thinking about. 30 year treasury, the 10 year Treasury. Gotta focus. Also Jamie Raskin. We're gonna go back to Capitol Hill. I guess go to Capitol Hill. Jamie Raskin is in a total throwdown defense of one of the merchants of hate, one of the biggest hate groups in this country, the Southern Poverty Law Center. Your favorite, Jamie Raskin. Philip Patrick's going to join us. Birch Gold Here's a quick and dirty of how you understand purchasing physical gold today. Text Bannon B A N N Owen at 989-898 you get the ultimate guide for investing in gold in precious metals. If your first time investor you talk to Philip Patrick and team, you could be eligible with a qualifying purchase for up to a ten thousand dollar rebate. Talk to Philip Patrick and his team. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Couple other things they have not put out. They did not sign the executive order last night on AI. I think the reason is they're mulling over this the push we're making on mandatory. It has to be mandatory testing and you need some sort of regulatory apparatus, at least some basic modicum of that to test these models. Also nsa, the national the puzzle palace at Fort Meade needs to be involved here. Not the Commerce Department. It's not a commerce situation. It's a intelligence and national security issue. NSA under Tulsi Gabbard. They need to be involved. You need to have it needs to be mandatory. Can't be volunteer. You can't depend on these guys for anything on volunte and there has to be some approval process. Sorry, not sorry. So I think people are chewing on that. Also the I think the Vatican's come out. They're putting out an encyclical on the 25th. I believe that's on AI Ben Harn where we're going to get all over that. We're going to go to Rask in a moment. The Mises Institute. Philip Patrick, as you know are hard money guys. They are libertarians. Probably one of the top intellectual centers for that. Was it Doug Casey? He put out a tweet last night and I would like Denver to put it up and Grace and Mo and Elizabeth to push out. I want all the war and posse members to read this because here we're in a situation and President Trump is talking about various alternatives to the Persian Gulf War. He has said now he's going to end this thing very quickly. That I think was the latest statement. Of course guys going back and forth, you got the Arabs involved now because it's their neighborhood but because of the spending cause the war and other issues. Philip Patrick the bond market is in Kind of a mini meltdown. Now it's very orderly, but people are just dumping treasury and say, hey, I want, I got to be paid more. I got to be paid more for 10 year. You're gonna, if I'm a, if I'll give you money for 10 years. I need, I need. You need to pay me more. 30 years the same. And 30 years are gonna affect the mortgages. And now you get the worst highest rate since 2007. And remember folks, that was the predicate that had the financial crisis in 2008, that 30 year, the 10 year. And everybody's going to feel this. Everybody's going to feel this. It's actually worse than inflation because everybody's going to feel it. If you got a credit card, if you have a student loan, you have a car loan, you're going to feel it immediately. Philip Patrick, walk me through what Doug Casey's saying. And our concern here. And this gets back to also the dollar has become. Because anytime you have a geopolitical incident like a war, there is a flight to quality and a flight to safety to the US Dollar. Naturally, that's what's being the prime reserve currency is all about. However, it's not, and we keep saying it's not just measuring the US Dollar against other fiat currencies. Right. It is about looking at it against kind of hard assets, whether that hard assets are real estate, gold. I don't consider crypto a hard asset. But they throw that in also because that is what the trade off is going to be. And people have to get ahead of this because right now I think the biggest ticking time bomb for the Trump administration is continued success because it's already put their economic plan off. At least six months we had this thing rolling, as you remember, in January and February, March, you start to see the green shoots of the supply side tax cut, of the tariffs, of the investment here. And now we're a little off track. Your thoughts are about Doug Casey and what Doug Casey, because what he's essentially saying we're teeing up because all these countries are highly leveraged. Everybody's, you know, all the legislatures over there have been passing these bills that they don't have the tax revenue. And the administrations in these countries have allowed it, or put forward in the legislature, I guess have allowed it, that you have $300 trillion of debt that's everywhere. That's everything, everything you added up. And we're heading towards what I call the world's largest margin call. You can see it on top of that. And this is why we've been on artificial intelligence for five fricking years. Six years of joy. We just arrived to this. This is one of the reasons I think we're one of the leaders in this movement is that the business model of the United States of America right now and its companies is a highly leveraged bet on artificial intelligence driving massive productivity gains which we haven't seen. We know it's going to drive massive layoffs. We haven't seen really where it's going to drive productivity gains at all. So we have a bet on top of a bet which is already this margin call that's coming. Philip Patrick, the floor is yours, sir.
Philip Patrick
Yeah, I mean, first of all, this is probably the most important topic we could talk about. This is something that I discuss with customers every single day. The reality is when you run a debt based financial system, the cost of credit becomes the most important thing in the world. And I'm glad we're talking about 10 and 30 year treasury rates. People day to day think this is sort of a Wall street abstraction that doesn't affect our day to day. But as you rightly point out, these are the benchmarks for the entire debt and lending market. Mortgages, business loans, credit cards, corporate borrowings, all of this, they're indexed to the 10 and 30 year federal yield. So when we see the cost of living explode, even, sorry, the cost of financing explode even 60 basis points from 4% to 4.6 or 4.7, essentially this is the cost of money itself rising across the entire economy. Now today, the reason this is happening I think is fairly straightforward. We're seeing oil prices that are elevated because of what's happening in the Straits of Hormuz. So inflation fears globally now are back and lenders are demanding more compensation to loan governments money. Right. At the end of the day, if I'm loaning a government money for 30 years, inflation is going to depend or is going to dictate what I'm looking for in terms of yield. And this is creating a trap now for Washington, right? The federal government, as we've discussed many Times, has roughly $39 trillion in debt. And we're having to borrow now daily, right? We've got to roll over old debt constantly. That requires foreign creditors, pension funds, banks and investors to keep coming and making those loans. But the more we borrow, the riskier those loans start to look. Higher risk means higher borrowing costs, which leads into inflation and essentially becomes this self en negative feedback loop if you want. And it requires investors demanding higher and higher yields Debt service payments as we know, are already crippling. It was $1.2 trillion last year alone. And this money is unproductive, right? It doesn't build new roads, it doesn't go to border security or to rebuilding American industry. It goes to interest payments and that's it. And that's kind of the catch 22. And it's exactly why we've seen President Trump screaming at Powell to lower rates for months now, right? Because if the Fed does nothing, we're going to see borrowing costs keep rising. We have to remember something important and this is things people forget. Interest rates on the debt are not dictated by the Fed, right? They're dictated by supply and demand. And when we start to view to look like a riskier investment, investors around the world start demanding higher interest. And the big concern is this, right? We know how this ultimately ends up. The Fed have a secret weapon which is quantitative easing. They can just print dollars out of thin air, use those printed dollars to buy federal debt and essentially fund the government directly, which floods the financial system with dollar liquidity. They're going to call it stability. And it is for Wall street and for the top 10% of Americans that own assets. Because what happens is when they flood the system with cheap money, everything goes up. Home prices, financial assets as well. And then it's food cost and energy. So the problem is it's for hard working Americans that rely on a paycheck, they start to see the value of their savings erode. And we've been here before, right? We saw it with Nixon in the 70s when he put pressure on Arthur Burns to lower interest rates as we were heading into an inflationary climate. And it led to essentially a lost decade, the stagflationary climate of the 1970s. So this is a very, very tough situation that we're in and people need to be watching the bond markets longer term. This highlights things that we've been talking about as well, right? Weaponization.
Stephen K. Bannon
The reason, Hang on one second. I just want to make sure, I want to reiterate to the audience, particularly maybe people just joined us recently, is that the 10 year, that's what the market people are prepared to lend the US government money for 10 years at this rate, risk free. Because it's the, the full faith and credit of the United States is, you know you're going to get paid off. You and the audience ain't risk free. That's why when the, when the 10 year goes to 4.5 or 4.6, heading to 5, your life starts to Change why? Because your credit card, your student loan, your home loan, your automobile loan, everything that you do in your life except for your mortgage is based off of that 10 year. That's why you're going to get a double whammy now of inflation and now higher interest rates. And I just want to go back to President Trump. The economic nationalism of Trump in the first term, in the late summer, early fall and up to the Christmas period of 2019, after the Chinese Communist Party had ripped up what we call the Lighthizer deal, two years of negotiations that would have solved all of Peter Navarro's Lighthizer Navarro, the seven deadly sins of the Chinese Communist Party's state capitalism model, which is not sustainable unless the west finances it, which we're doing. President Trump had The inflation was 1.4%, the 10 year treasury folks was 1.7%, 1.7%. And you had, you know, you had real wages, you had this was the biggest, as Steve Cortez says it is probably in the history of the country, the best of workers have ever had it with very low inflation and wages rising. Right. And employment, you know, getting down to full employment. We were on a roll. It's one of the reasons we got hit with a bioweapon with our new strategic ally in Asia, the Chinese Communist Party. But they, and so President Trump has done this before, predicated upon full spectrum energy, energy dominance, full spectrum energy dominance as a predicate. We've done this before. We got to be blunt, this did come off rail because Besson, they had a much harder thing to do this time because as bad as the economy was under Obama, it was nothing compared to what Joe Biden had handed President Trump, particularly with this massive spending. What Besson and Trump were able to pull off in that first 15 months is not just heroic, it's kind of a miracle. And let's just be blunt, we ain't there right now. And now you've got on the horizon, you got a gathering storm, a gathering financial storm. And the whole world now is on this kind of precipice financially to have this margin call where you're going to have an explosion of rates. That's why this situation in the Persian Gulf needs to get sorted out.
Philip Patrick
Philip PATRICK yeah, I could not agree with that more. I mean, look at what President Trump handed Biden and look at the damage that was done in four years. It wasn't just the massive spending, colossal spending that he handed President Trump. It was also global trust that had been broken through, asset seizures and everything else. Listen, we built trust over centuries, and it was decimated in the space of four years. If President Trump had taken over rightfully in 2020, I think his economic policies would have had a much easier time. What he's inherited is an absolute disaster. Not only a colossal debt pile, but a world that's running away from that debt. So Besson's having to deal with borrowing costs skyrocketing at the same time. It's an impossible situation that they've been handed, and as you rightly point out, it isn't specific to the United States. This is a debt problem across the entire Western world.
Stephen K. Bannon
We have 320. Yeah, hang on for one second. I'm holding to a break. We have $300 trillion. We add it all up. That's why I'm worried about this, what I call the world's biggest margin call. And it could be bad, and you have to be prepared for it. That's the way I look at all your options, including physical gold. The reason we give you so much information, Birch gold inundates you with information. You've got to become more sophisticated. You're going to have to do some work. We know you're prepared to do it. You're the Warren posse. But this is going to take some work on your side and some thinking through what exactly is going on. See what you see today in the war room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. Okay, Jamie, we're asking. We got some fireworks on the Southern Poverty Law center hearing at the Judiciary Committee. We're going to get into that. President Trump is getting ready to arrive at the United States Coast Guard Academy to give the commencement address. We're going to go there. We are juggling balls and doing time management. Philip, Patrick, your thoughts on all this, sir?
Philip Patrick
Look, I think this is a crazy climate. Like I said, for me, people understanding these issues in the bond market, debt, deficit, inflation, how that all ties together is going to be the most important thing moving forward. Because I think if people understand those problems, that's going to give them a good understanding of how to navigate the current cl. What I would say to everybody, though, is this. What we're seeing in this climate is very savvy investors coming in and positioning themselves. I would encourage everybody else to follow suit. In times like this, it's tough to determine what's happening. There's a ton of volatility. We saw precious metals prices come down, and I think it's caused a lot of people to sort of pause and see what's happening for the savvy investor. This is an opportunity to buy on the dip. The fundamentals for precious, they're not changing. In fact, they're strengthening. Every single day. Every time we write a new sort of, sorry, a new version or a new piece to the end of the dollar empire, it sort of transpires and it comes true. The concern that I have for people is a lot of people want to jump into something when they see prices moving up. But it's at times like this that we can really capitalize on the dips and position ourselves. Nothing has changed in terms of the fundamentals longer term. So I would tell everybody to sort of look beyond the noise, focus on those longer term fundamentals and use times like this to educate yourself and ultimately to position yourself. Because the smart guys are coming in in their droves. In this climate.
Stephen K. Bannon
Yeah, central banks are still buying. In fact, more central banks are adding to this and buying at record rates. Of course, some central banks are having to cash out a little bit to pay because they ain't got any. The oil, they can't monetize. Philip this is why now, folks, it's to immerse yourself in all this. It's all free and it's no obligation. You got the shorter guide about the in the age of Trump. But the end of the dollar empire, particularly installment, and it's all free, no obligation. You've got the installment eight, which you just put up about two months ago, 60 days ago, that's aging very well. I'm very proud of that. The whole thing is. And plus you've got the section on debt. Just dive into it. Because at the end of the day, you're going to have to come to your own judgment. Right. And that's why the people at Birch Gold, I think, do the best job. Put the most information out or prepared to walk you through it. Now what I do like is what you guys have done about first time investors up till May 29th. Walk me through for qualifying purchases up to a $10,000 rebate. If you haven't, if you haven't bought before, how do people find out more about that? What, like the definition for you guys of what's a qualifying purchase?
Philip Patrick
Yeah. So essentially we're trying to incentivize people to take the step in the current climate. I don't think this should be the reason that people jump in. There are many, many reasons to buy precious metals, but I think this is just an extra incentive. So as you rightly point out, we're offering up to $10,000 in free metals for qualifying purchases. That would be for a million dollar transaction, which is a very large transaction. Essentially, we're offering 1% in free metals and we'll scale that down regardless. So for 100,000, that's $1,000 in free metals, and we'll scale it all the way down. So we're trying to incentivize people to take the step today. For the reason that I mentioned, I think climates like this are tough to navigate. There's a lot of volatility, a lot of uncertainty, but I think there's a lot of opportunity in positioning. So that's something we have for war room viewers, and we're here and ready to honor it. But like I said, and I want address this, that is not a reason to buy gold. It is a cherry on top.
Stephen K. Bannon
Yeah, the reason to buy gold. It's got to be your own decision. That's why. Go get the information. We focused on the US Dollar in the Bretton woods system, what, five or six years ago, because we understood we could tell what Biden was going to do. It's pretty evident what these guys are going to do, this illegitimate regime, and they did it. And the results are exactly what we said. And, and it was a cold shot. Now we're in another crisis or heading towards a crisis because of this war in the Middle east. And President Trump is working nonstop to figure out how to come to a successful conclusion of that. Philip, Patrick, thank you so much. One more time. When people go to birchgold.com Bannon how do they get to you?
Philip Patrick
So burchgold.com Bannon get the information, read through, digest it, and if they want to learn more, they have access directly to people like me. They'll have contact information and I'll be here to guide Everybody through. So birchgold.com forward/bannon, start with the information and we'll be here waiting if and when they need us.
Stephen K. Bannon
Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.
Philip Patrick
Thank you.
Stephen K. Bannon
Check it out today, Putin's over in, Putin's over in Beijing. Let's say this. There's a very different vibe on this meeting. Last weekend when the, when our team was over there, President Trump was very complimentary, tried to reach out and give the olive branch. What he got was the Thucydides trap, that you're the declining power, we're the rising power. And history shows if we can keep you from screwing up right and getting too aggressive, there'll be peace and prosperity in the world. But if you want to defend your indefensible position as being the dominant power, a catastrophic conflict will develop. And this is according to the Henry Kissinger and Dr. Graham Allison at Harvard with Putin. They're over there right now. It's like a bro festival. The Russians. In fact, they had a Russian delegate or one of these people on there. Like, we sent over a big delegation. Their delegation called it the Spirit of Beijing. The Spirit of Beijing. And somebody said, well, hold it. Wasn't there a spirit of Anchorage, like a while ago? No, no, no. It was never Spirit of Anchorage. Spirit of Beijing. For a whole host of reasons of which we tried to fight the deep state in the ruling class in this country and in Western Europe, you know, forced us in the first administration not to try to work through and figure out how to have a rapprochement with the Russians. What did you get from that? Victoria Nuland in this crowd, you got the Ukraine war. When he says asset seizures and this concern about the United States. It all came out of the Ukraine war, the seizing of the assets of the Russian people. We are in a fix now. President Trump's going to draft the United States Coast Guard Academy for their commencement address here shortly. We're also gonna go to Capitol Hill, Jamie Raskin up in arms about the hate group, the railhead of hate in this country, the Southern Poverty Law Center. We're gonna cover it all and give you details after a short commercial break during the war room on a Wednesday in May. Short break, back in moment.
Caroline Ran
Where is the song for Justice?
Show: War Room AM with Steve Bannon
Air Date: May 20, 2026
Host: Stephen K. Bannon
Featured Guest: Caroline Wren
Additional Commentary: Philip Patrick, various political commentators
This episode dives deeply into the shifting dynamics in U.S. Senate races, the power of Trump endorsements, the impact of Senate Republican leadership decisions, and ongoing redistricting battles. The show also touches on economic warning signs, specifically related to debt and the bond market, and features commentary on Congressional hearings about the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The tone is unapologetically conservative and combative, with regular critique of anti-Trump Republicans and mainstream media.
Quote:
“When they test issues for candidates in Republican primaries to see what’s going to move them ahead, the Trump endorsement… moves you up by 50 points. There is no single better way to win a Republican nomination… than to say that the president is on your side.” —Political Commentator [04:00]
South Carolina:
Georgia:
Quote:
“We will have to say goodbye to Jim Clyburn and his notorious fish fry, in which he would just extort presidential candidates…” —Caroline Wren [22:23]
Notable Comment:
“Jamie Raskin is in a total throwdown defense of one of the merchants of hate, one of the biggest hate groups in this country, the Southern Poverty Law Center.” —Stephen K. Bannon [27:40]
Quotes:
“This is a debt problem across the entire Western world.” —Philip Patrick [41:00]
“Now you’re going to get a double whammy of inflation and now higher interest rates.” —Stephen K. Bannon [38:00]
“We’re heading towards what I call the world’s largest margin call.” —Stephen K. Bannon [32:34]
Quote:
“President Trump’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, and he’s gonna tell you guys what to do, and you’re gonna snap to attention and do it. The powerful do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.” —Stephen K. Bannon [17:43]
On GOP infighting & Trump’s power:
“There is no single better way to win a Republican nomination… than to say that the president is on your side.” —Political Commentator [04:00]
Caroline Wren on Washington insiders:
“I don’t really care what their anonymous quote is.” [20:58]
Bannon on establishment critique:
“All this big talk on these anonymous quotes is sickening. This is how gutless the senator.” [17:43]
On Senate tactics:
“To save the Senate and pass President Trump's agenda, you need to nuke the filibuster, period and stop.” —Caroline Wren [13:27]
On opposition to the SPLC:
“One of the biggest hate groups in this country, the Southern Poverty Law Center.” —Stephen K. Bannon [27:40]
Economic risks:
“It was $1.2 trillion last year alone [interest on the debt], and this money is unproductive... It goes to interest payments and that's it.” —Philip Patrick [35:53]
The episode moves rapidly between political developments, economic analysis, and media critique, maintaining an urgent, defiant tone throughout. Both host and guests lean heavily into polemics, mixing electoral calculus with calls for institutional change and direct attacks on both Democratic and “establishment” Republican rivals.
Whether dissecting infighting in the GOP, warning about financial catastrophe, or railing against the SPLC and mainstream media, this War Room AM episode provides a comprehensive view of current events from a MAGA-aligned perspective. The message: Trump’s influence remains unchallenged within the party, the stakes in Texas and beyond are existential, and economic dangers loom unless urgent action is taken—politically and personally.