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- [00:00]
Steve Bannon
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:05]
Grainger Advertiser
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- [00:37]
Steve Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. Granger's not got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big line MAGA Media I wish in my soul, I wish that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War ROOM here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. It's Saturday, the 28th of February in the year of our Lord 2026. Our coverage today was going to be quite heavy on the preparations, potentially how negotiations are going in preparation for potential military conflict. The President states about, I don't know, early in the morning, early morning hours, came forward with an eight minute video and talked about major combat operations against Iran and the ayatollah and the mullahs. And we're going to try to break it down for you. I think that we may add an extra hour of bonus coverage here to our traditional two hours on Saturday morning. So we're going to work through that. We got so many people to get in, so many of the experts we've worked with over the years to talk about this. Sam Faddis, I want to start with you, Sam. You dedicated, I think, 30, about 30 years your life in defense of your country in some of the baddest neighborhoods in the world, sir, is that correct?
- [02:23]
Sam Faddis
Yes, sir. We won't try to count how many years it is. They'll tell me how old I am now.
- [02:27]
Steve Bannon
STEVE but you're quite familiar with this particular bad neighborhood, I would say, sir, yes sir, absolutely.
- [02:38]
Sam Faddis
Spent a lot of my life there.
- [02:41]
Steve Bannon
And so tell us about it, put us in the mindset because I think this is one of the things we have to do is that the enemy gets a vote here. And this is not, you know, this is an ancient civilization, right? This is a country. It's a vast country. If you're over there, it's like shocking how big it is, how it looks, most of it barren. But it's an ancient civilization, 90 million people, highly bureaucratic, has been an enemy of the west since the times of the Greeks and the Romans. Always. I think the Romans would tell you their biggest enemies were not the Germans or the pacification of Gaul. It was always the Persians. The Athenians will tell you the exact same thing. So many of the great battles handed down to us about the defense of democracies against the Persians. Talk to us, what is their mindset today? Because clearly President Trump in the Israelis had a sense of the Persian people standing up against the ayatollah, against the mullahs, against the Revolutionary Guard. And this is why it was at least the first wave. Looks like a potential decapitation strike, sir.
- [03:52]
Sam Faddis
Yeah, that's right. And of course, as you have outlined exhaustively here, it has now been explicitly stated that the goal is regime change. So this is a fight for survival on the part of the guys we're up against. Internally, they'll be as brutal as they have to be. They do not care how many people they kill. And it's great to ask the Iranian people to rise up and I hope that happens. But it is not that simple. The Iranian regime will fight back. They're already fighting back. They have fired on watching the news, it seems to be at least six countries that are allied with the United States and where US Forces are. It appears that missiles or drones got through in Bahrain and hit 5th Fleet American 5th Fleet headquarters. They have already their surrogates, I know in northern Iraq, where the Kurds are, have already fired on Erbil. I don't know that that was particularly effective. But as you noted, the Houthis are already making noises. But look, the Iranians are going to take this weakness worldwide and they're going to take this into the realm where they feel they have an advantage. So that means not just their surrogates all over the Middle east and there are many of them. I mean, they're all over Iraq, they're all over the place. Bahrain, where our Fifth Fleet headquarters is, which was already hit. Majority of the people there are Shia. And Iranian activity on that island has always been the main security threat to them, that regime. But the Iranians can reach worldwide. Their largest embassy is In Mexico City. There aren't any Iranians in Mexico. So you can figure out why they have the largest official presence in Mexico City. It isn't to, it isn't to spread Islam. It's because it's a, a jumping off point in the United States. They have long standing connections to the cartels who we just swacked a week or so ago. So they will take it worldwide and potentially they will take it onto our soil and they will take it into a realm where they feel they can, they can stand with us, where conventional capabilities and missiles and aircraft carriers don't count for very much. So that's, that's what you can anticipate.
- [06:07]
Steve Bannon
Have there ever been, because President Trump specifically asked for the, that we're doing this so that you can stand up. You've had this for what, 47 years. The people in Iran today, or their parents or grandparents are the ones that brought the Islamic revolution and threw out the Shah, who was our biggest ally at the time. But he's calling on those people. You got a shot now to take back your government. How deep is the discontent in Persia after 47 years and obviously what was A, A at the time, a nation trying to build a middle class, is now looks like in, in relative poverty about where they should be. As your assessment as an intelligence officer, how much, how deep is this discontent go and are these people waiting? President Trump says now is the hour of your liberty. Will they respond to that?
- [07:03]
Sam Faddis
I don't know to what extent they will respond. How deep is the discontent? It is massive. It is real. I have no doubt that the majority of people in Iran would welcome and cheer and dance in the streets if the ayatollahs were gone. But wanting that and making it happen are two different things. These guys, the regime just killed, as far as I can tell, somewhere around 30,000 of their own citizens in the streets to crush the demonstrations that happened recently. They are the level. There is no limit to the amount of force and brutality they will use. So, you know, to overthrow a regime like that, you, you really need organization and planning and assistance. It's not as simple as just saying, everybody go out in the street and take over.
- [07:55]
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Now.
- [07:56]
Sam Faddis
I hope to God that happens because that would be wonderful for the Persian people to be free. But wishing it is so and making it so are two totally different things.
- [08:08]
Steve Bannon
Well, to do this, okay, so you have. There's never, at least in modern times with air power, there's never been a regime change just on air power alone, right? So somehow you have to have some assets there. You know, we've tried it before with major military assets. We tried it with paramilitary in, in Afghanistan. That work brilliantly at first. Before you started trying to nation build. Do you think besides the Mossad, do you think we've done enough infiltration to actually work with those? You know, John Salman's on here earlier, and John's out on a skiff right now. He'll be back with us later. But saying the MEK and the Kurds and all these disparate elements that quite frankly are anti ayatollah and certainly anti regime, do you think there's been enough infiltration of all these different groups? Or can the can people put aside 30,000 that got slaughtered and say, hey, if the Americans are going to come in and flatten the Ayatollah's house, it's time for us to rise up, grab what we can convince the military, if not the Revolutionary Guard, and let's get on, let's meet the moment when President Trump says, now is the hour of your liberty.
- [09:23]
Sam Faddis
No, I don't think there's been enough infiltration. And people think about Iraq and the efforts we went to, to ultimately convince the Iraqis to essentially give up Saddam Hussein. Okay. But still it came down to us having to put troops on the ground. And look, I was inside Iraq with the team for a year in advance of that invasion, but I was already building on efforts that the CIA had been sustaining for many years. We never walked away from the Kurds. Never walked away. So we had been working that problem for year after year after year to build that. Do we have that inside Iran? We do not. If, if this regime falls, if there is this collapse, my estimation it will be because some guys who are in power at the top effectively stage what amounts to a couple and say, enough of this, we got to change course. And, and it will come in that, in that way, somebody within the irgc, somebody at that level will break ranks. That, that's what you got to hope for.
- [10:29]
Steve Bannon
This is essentially, though, what happened in Venezuela. The Vice President. The Vice president we now know was in communication with the United States government.
- [10:38]
Sam Faddis
That's right.
- [10:39]
Steve Bannon
And she essentially cut a deal with saying, he's a bad guy, he's out of control, you got to take the wife to get him out of here. I'll work with you, I'll figure it out. But you got to give me cover. Like, I didn't rant this guy out. I mean, essentially, that's what happened in Venezuela. Is that correct?
- [10:54]
Sam Faddis
That is exactly what happened. She gave him up. She sold him. She sold him down the river to us. And that's how. And that's how that. That happened. Do I think we have those contacts at that level of the Iranian regime now? No, but we could still hope that somebody or somebody's, you know, who are not at the very top say, look, these idiots. We. We gotta. We gotta jump ship here. We gotta change course. These guys are gonna destroy the country. That, that'll be, in my estimation, how it happens. Not spontaneously. People in the street.
- [11:27]
Steve Bannon
That's. That's where they're putting. That's where either some military part of the military or the IGRC say, hey, look, we gotta save the nation. We're Persians. We gotta save the country. The ayatollah's gotta go now. I just wanna put. Not to bed, but because Fox has been rolling out the last couple of weeks. You had the huge thing in Munich, being that I was there. I studied the Shah and the family a lot, particularly in exile. They've been, They've been. They've been promoting. It's like Chalabi in Iraq and, you know the situation there. People in D.C. and for those of those too young, if you remember Fox, you had this guy, Chalabi, he was going to be the guy we were going to put in. He had the Iraqi National Congress, I think it was. He was everywhere as our guy. And when he went back, he disappeared into history because nobody in Iraq knew who the guy was. You've got the Shah's son. You've had this huge demonstration. A lot of people in the west, and particularly Fox News particularly, has had him on a lot. Is there any potential or any enthusiasm that you see, given your knowledge of this region, any appetite to bring the Shah or his family back in some sort of these monarchists?
- [12:33]
Sam Faddis
No, I, I don't think so. I think the Achalaby analogy is dead on. I mean, if he wants to be Shaw of, like, Old Town Alexandria or something, I guess maybe that's relevant. But he's. He's another one of these characters that's well known and well loved in Western European capitals in Washington, D.C. he is not the guy to lead the country. And I don't think he has any huge following. I know over the years working with real Iranian patriots, guys who were going back inside the country and working for freedom, that they generally disparaged him as, As a fraud and somebody who wouldn't. Wouldn't get in the fight, wouldn't risk anything, but wanted to pretend that he was going to return one day.
- [13:17]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me about mek. Explain who MEK is. Because MEK has been put up today, the Kurds, et cetera. You got. It's called Iran now, but it's essentially Persia. You do have some smaller groups there. Mek Are they not a combination of. And they've been fighting this and they got Rudy and other people that have been big supporters of them over the years in decades, these conferences. What is MEK and do they have a potential to step in here?
- [13:42]
Sam Faddis
No, they don't have a potential to step in. I mean, they've been affiliated with the Iraqis, amongst other things, and communist groups and so forth. No, they are another group that is really good at playing outside of Iran and pretending that they, they are a major force. And no, they're not. They're. They are not somebody. They're not an outfit that's going to lead the way on anything.
- [14:06]
Steve Bannon
Sam, can you stick around? I realize, I know you got a blow out of here at noon. You've got it. By the way, you're giving a speech today. Is anything we can promote where Sam Fadis is going to be? Because Sam Fadis is both a great intelligence and you're one of the leaders of the patriot movement in Pennsylvania.
- [14:20]
Sam Faddis
I'm going to be down in Bucks county at an event sponsored by Right for Bucks, which is one of the premier patriot groups in the state of Pennsylvania. And addressing, addressing those folks. They are as MAGA as you can as you can get. And they asked me to come down there and they have been in the fight for years. So I am making the drive.
- [14:44]
Steve Bannon
You guys have got one of the most hardcore patriot movements ever in the great state of Pennsylvania. Eventually we're going to get there about the stealing of the 2020 election with those mail in ballots in Philadelphia. Hang on if you can, Sam, I know you got a blow out here at noon.
- [14:56]
Sam Faddis
Well done.
- [14:57]
Steve Bannon
Erik Prince is going to join us, Dr. Bradley Thayer. Brandon Weickert has a update. Captain Fennell has an update. We're going to get to all of it to make sure that you've got every tool in the toolbox. Make sure you can think through as America at least commences major combat operations in Iran. Looks like it could be spilling out in some other areas. Houthi's getting involved. Maybe the British are stepping in. We'll make it all make sense next in the war room.
- [15:36]
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- [16:05]
Joe Allen
War Room.
- [16:06]
Steve Bannon
Here's your host, Stephen K. Banner. Okay, we got BRANDON Weickert and Dr. Thayer. We're going to momentarily for updates, I want to go to the White House, our own Neil McCabe, a speaker, as we had Mike Johnson or Susan, we had Mike Davis up here talking about the authorization because already the Democrats are pushing back and some others. Speaker Johnson's given the President a bit of air cover, has he not? Can you read the Speaker Johnson a statement?
- [16:37]
Neil McCabe
Yes, Dave, of course. You know, Johnson, of course, is a constitutional lawyer. And so I think that's why he was motivated to do this today. Iran is facing severe consequences of its evil actions. President Trump and the administration have made every effort to pursue peaceful and diplomatic solutions in response to the Iranian regime's sustained nuclear ambitions, development and terrorism, and the murder of Americans, even their own people. And I'll just skip down to the key paragraph. The Gang of Eight was briefed in detail earlier this week that military action may be necessary to protect American troops and American citizens in Iran. I received updates from Secretary Rubio thereafter.
- [17:23]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Full stop, full stop, full stop. It can't be. You meant Iraq. It couldn't be Iran. You said American troops and American citizens in Iran. Can you go back and look at that again?
- [17:35]
Neil McCabe
I read, I'm reading in Iran, sir,
- [17:40]
Steve Bannon
he said protecting American citizens in Iran. That's what Johnson said. Isn't that quite, isn't that quite odd? Isn't that quite odd?
- [17:54]
Neil McCabe
Well, it would mean that there are probably. I think that, I think he's laying out a constitutional marker and that's what was necessary. And he's probably referring to contractors and other people there.
- [18:09]
Steve Bannon
I'm not sure we have, I'm not sure we have a lot of contractors in Iran. We have contractors. They're guys like Eric, they're guys like Erik Prince. They're those types of contractors. I'm not sure there's a lot of contractors in Iran. I could be wrong, but I don't know if that's a justification. So essentially he's saying English is a second language. He's saying, what has been this controversy that Rubio, the Gang of Eight is both the intelligence folks from both sides, the party in control, which are the Republicans in the Senate, in the House, and the ranking members on these Intelligence and Armed Services Committee, they get all the certain briefings, the high level briefings. So Rubia went up there and briefed the Gang of Eight. Now Schumer and others are saying it wasn't enough. They had too many questions. They didn't understand what was going on. Do you think this is going to be enough? Mike Davis says, hey, he's already got authorization and he's just going to use what we've been using for 25 years. Is that what you're hearing out of the White House?
- [19:12]
Neil McCabe
Well, I haven't heard anything from the White House. They said they were, they said that there were, there was going to be no statement from the president despite rumors. They push the pool call time to 2pm But I think that this is following what Mike Davis said. This is the prebuttal, and he's basically going down the constitutional checklist of what is required. And I think Johnson basically did this to give air cover like you said, although there are people on Capitol Hill, Thomas Massie among them, who are challenging this effort as unconstitutional. And so we'll see how it plays out. But Johnson is on board and on duty.
- [19:50]
Steve Bannon
Steve Neal, just two things. Number one, I just want to make sure the the White House has come out and said all this rumor that the president is going to address the nation in another announcement. They've put the kibosh on it. That's not going to happen.
- [20:05]
Neil McCabe
Correct. That that came out maybe two hours ago.
- [20:09]
Steve Bannon
And explain to the audience, when you say the White House pool call or time is 2 o', clock, what does that mean?
- [20:17]
Neil McCabe
So there's a traveling pool with the president in Mar a Lago and the White House comm staff will tell those guys, hey, you know, you don't need to be around until this time. And so what they're telling them is that nothing is going to happen until 2pm at 2pm you can show up at Mar a Lago and be on standby in case something happens. But I didn't get the impression that there was going to be a statement. I just got the impression that they're just trying to give people time so that they can get lunch.
- [20:49]
Steve Bannon
Now, the people should understand President Trump is down there. They've got a skiff down at Mar a Lago. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Raisin Cain, is with him and the Secretary of War, Pete Hexseth, am I correct in that?
- [21:08]
Neil McCabe
I don't know that, but I would guess he's in close contact. If they aren't there, Steve.
- [21:13]
Steve Bannon
Okay, Neil, where do people go for your social media?
- [21:18]
Neil McCabe
You can find me at reporter McCabe on all the social. Steve.
- [21:22]
Steve Bannon
Thank you, sir. Appreciate you stick around. If you have anything, come right back to me. We also have Brian Glenn on the case, Brandon Weichert, Any updates? You've had your pulse, you've had your hand on the pulse of this. Any updates, particularly in the region. Is this spreading?
- [21:35]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, it is starting to spread. I have gotten confirmation that the radar that was supposedly hit this morning, our radar in Bahrain, $300 million piece of equipment and TPS 59 is destroyed. There are likely more damage to other radar systems. Now the key thing here to remember, Steve, it is very obvious now that the Iranian strategy is to first degrade American, Arab and Israeli abilities to det incoming missiles. I just got word from somebody on the ground of the Middle East. Their belief is that Iran is attempting to degrade all of our air defenses in the region, believing that they will be depleted soon and then they are preparing to launch a massive swarm attack with our depleted air defenses not being able to defend against them. Again, we don't know for sure if that's going to happen, but I do think that seems to be the plan right now. So the US Air defenses, as I said earlier though, have held up relatively so far. But it does seem like these are all shaping operations. Steve. I don't think the big one has even started yet. And there's rumors now that the British might be coming in to backfill some of these air defense systems. So we'll see what happens with that.
- [22:56]
Steve Bannon
But we got it. We've got a clip of starboard just
- [22:58]
Brandon Weickert
Haifa's also, by the way, Haifa has may have been hit as well in the last hour. That is still waiting to be confirmed. But there is some compelling video that's been released in the last 30 minutes that indicates, indicates perhaps an Iranian long range missile did in fact get through.
- [23:12]
Steve Bannon
Describe, explain to the audience. When you say shaping, these are all shaping evolutions. What is shaping, what is a shaping evolution in the early stages of, of combat operations mean?
- [23:24]
Brandon Weickert
Yeah, it's just like the name suggests. Basically before the big battle or the big war initiates, you want to go in and kind of mold the environment through directed attacks and sort of COVID maneuvers so that your main forces when they arrive, have as maneuvering room and favorable environment, a permissive environment as possible. We're doing it. The Israelis are doing it to Iran. It looks like the Iranians are trying to do it to us with these missile strikes on radar systems and whatnot. So that's what's going on right now. But if you look at the size of this thing, to me it doesn't seem yet large enough to accomplish that which President Trump is claiming he wants to accomplish. So that's why I say it's shaping
- [24:06]
Steve Bannon
up around hanger for one second. Do we have. Can we play Starmer? We can't play Starmer, The UK Prime Minister. Let's go and play it. As part of our commitments to the security of our allies in the Middle east, we have a range of defensive capabilities in the region which we've recently strengthened. Our forces are active and British planes are in the sky today as part of coordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies. Dr. Bradley Thayer, correct me if I'm wrong. It was a week ago that they said we couldn't even use the air base that we have, I think Fairfield, that we have most of our assets at because the Muslim majority minority, 57 Muslims, members of parliament that are labor guys, didn't want any asset of the United States to be striking an Islamic republic. Now what is Starmer telling us now, sir?
- [25:14]
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Well, it's a positive step for Keir Starmer, finally, that he's supporting the US in this operation at a time where we need allies, not only the Gulf sheikdoms, Saudi Arabia, but it's very nice and important that the British are involved in this operation. So, you know, now we're focusing, Steve, of course, and rightfully so, on the conduct of the war. We also need to start thinking about the consequences of this war. When we're thinking about the conduct. You and Sam nailed it. It's can air power bring about regime change? Air power in conjunction with Israeli special operators and US Special operators who would be working with Iranians, the Iranian mass level, and then also Iranian groups. That's the missing piece of the puzzle here. Can that actually come about without having the theocracy murder their own people in greater numbers than Sam identified, which is shocking. Or have Iran devolve into civil war. So we might begin thinking about situations like Iraq in 1991, where we're going to have to have a semi permanent no fly zone, where we're going to have to have dedicated military assets to ensuring that Iran stays together as a country, if we want it to stay together, that the theocracy cannot kill its own people. And that the, you know, the humanitarian needs of the Iranian people are going to be addressed. So the conduct of the war is ongoing. Obviously, a lot to focus on in the days and likely weeks to come. But the consequences of this are going to be profound, Obviously, for the U.S. the region and Iran. Iran could devolve into civil war.
- [27:25]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on one second. I agree with you, by the way. Starmer was very specific allies in the region. I think he's also talking Qatar, uae, the Saudis, they view those they view those as major allies to themselves. They're very involved, obviously, in everything dealing with oil and gas in the region. Old British Petroleum has deep roots in the region. Short Commercial break Will return with observations and analysis of major combat operations in Iran and maybe other places next in the war.
- [28:06]
Grainger Advertiser
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- [28:35]
Steve Bannon
War ROOM here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. Okay, end of the dollar empire, I think now more than ever, particularly when the market's open on Monday. Maybe you talk to Philip Patrick and the team over the weekend. Take your phone out. Bannon B A N N O N 989-898. You get access to Philip Patrick. You also get a free no obligation investing in gold, physical gold in the age of Trump and precious metals. Don't forget silver. And you talk to Philip Patrick and the team, the best in the business, and you get end of the dollar empire that we started putting out, I don't know, five years ago. It's got a bound edition, a Day Patriots edition. The special's off. But you never know, maybe we talk Birch Gold back into putting it up. You get a free edition up until last night, midnight, unfortunately, free edition. It's still available. Go check it out. And we're coming out with the eighth installment momentarily. That'll be online. This one's bound. Mo up. This is what you talked about yesterday at West Point, that it's time to focus on war fighting because situations like this are going to pop up.
- [29:45]
Maureen Bannon
I agree. And the American people need to have full faith and confidence in the future leaders of our armed forces, of our
- [29:54]
Steve Bannon
military that's not woke.
- [29:55]
Maureen Bannon
That it's not woke. So we need to focus. Like I said in both board meetings, we need to get back to focusing on war fighting because if these future graduates deploy in support of an operation, the American people need to have full faith and confidence that they can lead America's sons and daughters.
- [30:12]
Steve Bannon
You had your turn in the barrel. What, Kuwait? Iraq? I did 10 or 11.
- [30:16]
Maureen Bannon
20. 11.
- [30:17]
Steve Bannon
2011. Got it back in the old days, 101st. Was that correct? Fort Campbell. I think I went back there and met you when I came back.
- [30:24]
Maureen Bannon
326 Engineer Battalion that fell, Combat Engineers that fell under Fort Campbell.
- [30:29]
Steve Bannon
Guys from Bastogne. Right. Fantastic. Mo. Thank you for joining us today. Sam Faddes and Captain Fennell. The same to take time away from your Saturday. Sam, you've got to head down to Bucks County. I just want to get your thoughts since you really have expertise in the region and particularly what President Trump talked about. President Trump said now is the hour of your liberty. With all these things going on. I'm essentially telling the ayatollahs and the mullahs either stand down or they're going to get hit. But he was pretty specific, I thought, saying the Persian people, it's going to be your baby. Your thoughts about all this as we're beginning the first day of this major combat operations?
- [31:13]
Sam Faddis
Well, I think first of all, that being the goal and what we have seen in the scale of the deployments by the United States, it is clear we're not talking about a day of airstrikes or two days of airstrikes. This is going to be a sustained operation, go on for, for some time. We can hope that the Iranian regime collapses. And I'll be the first guy to celebrate if that happens, having devoted a big chunk of my life to that cause. But if it doesn't collapse and you've got these guys against their backs against the wall and you've made it an existential fight, you can expect them to lash out in every way they can. And I think increasingly you will see that will be unconventional. They will fight us where they feel they have the advantage or they can at least stand toe to toe with us. So. And that could be worldwide, that could be on our soil.
- [32:07]
Steve Bannon
Well, we already know, in fact, Natalie was on yesterday about how many Iranians had actually come across in the Biden invasion. We already know it looks like the Houthis. Brandon Weikart's telling us the Houthis are involved. The Houthis are kind of unconventional. I mean, they're a mountain people that the Egyptians, the British, I mean, they have a long history of not being conquered. I mean, it's kind of like going into Appalachia and try to dig out the Scotch Irish out of there. These people are born fighting. We know the Houthis. Houthis, I think, took out a combat aircraft a couple months ago. It looks like the Houthis may be up on it in the southern Arabian peninsula. And they're about as unconventional as you can get, right?
- [32:45]
Sam Faddis
Yeah, 100%. I would note, as an Appalachian American and Scots Irish, we're better dancers than the Houthis. But I, I take your point. They, you know, all kidding aside, they are for real. The there are lots of folks like we could see Bahrain being bombs going off all over Manama, all over Bahrain by Shia militia and Shia terrorist groups affiliated with the Iranians. They have a vast reach. Well, we're a worldwide reach, so they have the capacity to hit back.
- [33:18]
Steve Bannon
And there's no doubt in your mind right now that President Trump understands that. He's saying, I'm gonna take care of that reach when this thing's over. They're not gonna have worldwide reach. They're gonna be like Caesar pacified Gaul. President Trump has kind of said this is gonna come to an end. It's been 47 years and I realized a lot of people and people in the MAGA movement saying, hey, I thought we were stopping forever wars. But President Trump to me was pretty blunt in this eight minute address to the nation in the middle of the night or to the world and saying that their run of doing this is over.
- [33:54]
Sam Faddis
Yeah, I think that's clearly his intent. He said that as clearly as you possibly could. Right. We're not going to live indefinitely with you guys setting the world on fire whenever the hell you feel like it. We're ending this right now. That's clearly his intent.
- [34:09]
Steve Bannon
Sam Faddis, send our regards to all the patriots in Bucks county as you go down for the speech. How can people follow you on all your analysis, sir?
- [34:18]
Sam Faddis
Best place go to Substack a n d magazine.substack.com and magazine.
- [34:23]
Steve Bannon
Thank you, sir. Appreciate you taking time away. Good luck at Bucks county today.
- [34:27]
Sam Faddis
Take care.
- [34:28]
Steve Bannon
Kathryn Fennell, you also have got a punch out on us. You've been spectacular over the last couple weeks. Your assessment of what you've seen, at least in the early stages of the major combat operations, air and sea, sir.
- [34:43]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
Yeah, I think Brandon's right to use the term shaping operations. We have to declaw the Iranian military threat to our forces. The president said our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats, menacing activities that directly endanger the United States, our troops and our overseas bases and and our allies. So that's what we're doing right now. And going after ballistic missile sites, going after surface to air missile sites, going after anti ship cruise missile sites, anti ballistic missile sites against our ships, all of those. And their naval forces, obviously their air forces are no threat to us. So I said last week when we were on, we talked about the difference between air superiority building to air supremacy. We're in that phase right now where we're building. We've had our initial strikes. We want to establish the ability to fly over Iran without the risk to our aircraft so that we can call down fires on any additional forces that try to generate these waves of missile attacks or drone attacks. And so that's what we're shaping towards. And you asked why was this happening now? Well, I can tell you one reason it may be happening now is starting on the 4th of March in Beijing, we'll have the National People's Congress, Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China will be focused from 4 to 11 March on their national People's Congress. And given all the purges and all the other things that's going on in China, they're going to be diverted from getting involved with this, at least for now. They probably already have been involved, but that's going to be very hard for them to insert themselves. Now, we're running the cards in the table on this right now and rolling back the decades of military capabilities that the Iranians have received from the Russians and the Chinese. That is the objective right now to then be able to do the follow on larger strikes that will be able to take out more of the forces that are used against the Iranian people. So I would say President Trump picked a perfect time. He used deception. Remember last week you had those articles in Axios that said that the chairman was against the strike everybody and then you brought on the Omani delegate. So there was a lot of deception that went on here. And we always think of the Chinese are very good at deception, but I think President Trump is as well. And I think at the tactical and operational level, we will be using deception to be able to ferret out these remaining parts of the Iranian military regime that can strike outside of their shores and borders so that we're not constantly at threat. Threat. I made many transits through the Strait of Hormuz. It's always A dangerous and deadly risk when you go through there, because you're essentially driving through their missile envelopes. And we need to eliminate that so that the free flow of goods and services and oil and everything else that comes in and out isn't under the hostage threat from the, from the Iranians. And so I think that's what we're doing right now. We're shaping the environment to roll those threats back so that we can operate with freedom and have air and sea supremacy in the region.
- [37:50]
Steve Bannon
Do you think. You know, I think at most the straits of Hormuz, 21 miles geographically, but the strait itself is much tighter, as you know, having gone through there. Do you believe that? One of the things we. I think we have to do, I'd be surprised if we haven't done it, but I haven't heard it cut off the oil going, coming out and going to the CCP because I think it's 40% of the CCP's energy, but it's like 80 or 90% now of the cash flow going to the moolahs. If you take Scott Bessant's destruction of their currency, you add this. Have you heard any word or anything? You've seen those like, we've at least begun a naval blockade or quarantine against their oil going to the Chinese Communist Party.
- [38:32]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
I don't think anybody's shipping oil through the straight of Hormuz today. And so depends on how long this goes, what conditions we establish. But I think that is obviously one of the objective is to cut off the money to the mullahs. And also an ancillary impact is to, you know, remind China their vulnerabilities and that they need to behave and not consider other activities in their region out there in the Indo Pacific. But I would say with the forces that we have there right now, nobody is going to. With the missiles that will be flying, have been flying and can continue to fly. I don't see commercial oil tankers going in and out right now. Not for, not for the near term.
- [39:12]
Steve Bannon
You're talking air superiority, really, air dominance. Once you have air dominance, you're saying, just have it. You have your will to hit them when you want, where you want and how you want real quickly. Because now you got to bounce. I got a couple minutes. You've got combat. You got CIC and the air ops in the North Arabian Sea. You got air ops and combat Information center and air ops in the Eastern Med. And then you have Doha, centcom's forward deployed base. Just put people in the room. But the coordination that's going on right now is like what it's like, intense.
- [39:44]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
So all these carriers are tied into this joint commander that's probably in gutter with and they run what they call an air tasking order. So the air component commander will be leading an orchestration of targets that have been selected, you know, years ago, weeks ago, months ago, built up. We know where a lot of this stuff is. Targets assigned to the specific airframes from the Air Force, from the Navy assigned to our TLAM. A lot of TLAMs will be used, have probably already been used. So that'll be orchestrated. All the communications are together and that cycle of targeting that goes on. It's a 24 hour basis that we're just constantly assessing, evaluating and going after targets. If we see that we miss something, we'll go back after it. If we see something moving, those are time sensitive targets. We'll go after the time sensitive targets. So that process is well honed since Desert Storm, where the Navy and the Air Force really started getting together in what they call the Joint Force Air component Commander concept to coordinate and orchestrate our air operations, not just with aircraft, but with our Navy ships and submarines and their TLAM and all fires, all fires from all services. It's not just Navy, Air Force, all services that are involved that are able to project power will be coordinated through this system that we have. And everybody is dialed into this and is aware of what's going on in not just only their portion, but the larger portion. And so if somebody gets taken out in one sector that can, a leadership role can be taken by another, another place. So if somebody were to take out the JFAC and gutter, we could pick up operations with our two carriers or even back in Tampa at centcom. So there's a lot of flexibility that we have in command and control. And those are from years of less, 35 years of lessons that we have learned as a joint force to bring fires like this. And so it's really about sustainment and how we can continue to go for as long as we need to until we achieve all those targeting objectives that we've set forward in the plan that was put forward and we're executing right
- [41:56]
Steve Bannon
now major combat operations. Captain Funnell, former Naval Intelligence head of the Pacific Fleet, thank you so much for joining us, sir. Appreciate you always.
- [42:07]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
Thank you.
- [42:08]
Steve Bannon
Captain Jim Finneau. Captain Brunel, we're going to get a special bonus hour. Can you stick around for a few moments? I know you got to head out here Captain Bannon is with us. We're going to take a short commercial break. So much more to go through. We got Erik Prince, Dr. Thayer, Brandon Weickert, Joe Allen. Much, much more. Stick around. You're in the war room.
- [42:36]
Sam Faddis
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- [43:05]
Steve Bannon
War Room, here's your host, Stephen K. Banff. Okay, we've actually got special coverage. Instead of us having to do it now, we got the Charlie Kirk show is going to follow us. Andrew Colvette and his team is up. So stick around for that coverage. So great that they were able to stay up. Jack Posobic, I think will be back. Posobec will be part of that too. I was there 79 to 80. Your uncle Chris I think was there in 86 with Gaddafi. Were there 10 and 11?
- [43:30]
Maureen Bannon
20. 11.
- [43:31]
Steve Bannon
11. OK. Lot of time. A lot of, a lot of assets in the, in the Middle East.
- [43:37]
Maureen Bannon
Correct.
- [43:38]
Steve Bannon
Time to bring that to an end.
- [43:39]
Maureen Bannon
Correct. And we thought we did in 2011. But we, we do have troops back in Iraq right now.
- [43:44]
Steve Bannon
Unbelievable social media. Where do people go get you?
- [43:47]
Maureen Bannon
You can find me on Twitter and get her at Maureen Underscore ban. And I am a little Shadow banned by Mr. Musk right now is the. And then on Instagram at real Maureen Bannon.
- [43:59]
Steve Bannon
Is that army? Is that an army baseball?
- [44:01]
Sam Faddis
It is.
- [44:02]
Maureen Bannon
It's a mock up of the army baseball jersey, the throwback jersey.
- [44:06]
Steve Bannon
Joe Allen, we're going to toss to. I was going to get you in the next hour. We're going to toss to Andrew Colvette and the team at the Charlie Kirk Show. Artificial intelligence, these weapons fire and forget. Joe Allen, you're very concerned about this. We're going to have you on today. Talk about anthropic. We'll do that Monday. You've also got an event coming up I want everybody to know about. What do you got for us?
- [44:26]
Joe Allen
Well, Steve, it's good to be back, albeit at a very solemn time in our country's history, maybe humanity's history. The tension between the Department of war. And Anthropic has come to the breaking point. Of course, Anthropic is now being cut off from all contracts with the US Military and any contractors that deal with the US Military. Immediately after that, you had Sam Altman stepping in saying that OpenAI would take over with the analysis of classified documents with their AI. So it shows you that the power of this technology is not simply a hype campaign by the Silicon Valley set. The power of this technology is being recognized by the Department of War. I fear that the Department of War has not really reckoned with the dangers of this technology and the inaccuracies this technology brings. But this is a critical moment not only geopolitically, not only culturally, but on a technological level. And this is why Humans first was formed. And this is why we are trying our best to use the means that we have at our disposal to put the power back with the American people and to in any way possible to give American people agency over where this technology goes.
- [45:51]
Steve Bannon
Talk to me about Humans First. I want everybody to get to it. We've had all these people of the coalition, people should know. Joe over the last couple of months has been working behind the scenes with the major players in the industry to help get all this organized. You're going to be launching events you're going to be doing. Joe, tell me about it. Why is it important? Where do people go? To find out more about it,
- [46:12]
Joe Allen
we'll see. The first run of town hall tours begins next week. So Monday at noon on the front steps of the state capital of Florida in Tallahassee. Press conference with a whole array of very, very notable figures. And then two days later on Wednesday, you have a town hall in West Palm Beach. The location will be up on the website. That's humans first.com and then an event I've been looking forward to for months, Georgia Tech on Friday, 6pm Georgia Tech. All that info up not only at my website, but also humans first.com and then back to Dallas for a talk at First Baptist Church, downtown Dallas that Sunday at 5pm Central. And it will be great to return. So this is just the beginning of what will ultimately be a full nationwide campaign. So they should go to the war room. Posse wants to get involved and we want you involved. We want your voice. Humans first.com or at real humans first on x and of course my social media handle at Joe B O T X Y Z.
- [47:26]
Steve Bannon
Now more than ever, we're covering. Also we're going to do the pregame with Joe on Monday. We're covering live, obviously, all these human first events, starting with the press conference on the steps of the state capitol in Florida. I got to tell you, Governor DeSantis. Governor DeSantis has been on point on this thing. Joe Allen. Joe, one more time, where do people go for humans first? Where do they go for Joe? But
- [47:51]
Joe Allen
go to humans first.com, everything there. And of course, sign up. And then ealhumans first on X and then of course my handle O, E, B, O, T, X, Y, Z on X. All this info will be up on my site as well at X. And then of course, my website, JoeBot XYZ. The posse's been in it the entire time for five years now. Steve, it's time to activate and mobilize.
- [48:21]
Steve Bannon
Fix bayonets to the ramparts. Sir. Joe. Joe. Couldn't have a better guy. The tip of the spirit. Thank you so much, sir, for joining us this morning. Taj Gill. The bandits have been over there, but you've really been over there. How many, 16 tours, was it? 15 tours. How many tours?
- [48:38]
Taj Gill
Yeah, 16 times between the military and contracting.
- [48:43]
Steve Bannon
And you're very excited about today, about major combat operations. You got me in the morning and said, this is so amazing. Can I come on the show, sir?
- [48:52]
Neil McCabe
Yeah.
- [48:53]
Taj Gill
Well, I think like most of us, we're hoping there'll be a diplomatic off brand, but if not, we're, it's, it's on, we're in it. So now we got to win it. You can't, you can't go into these things and lose. So Trump's got a strategy, Hexag's got a strategy and we got, I see a, a Shahid drone, one of the ones that got popular in Ukraine war, made its way into Bahrain and took out the Fifth Fleet radar dome, billion dollar dome by a 30,000. A billion dollar radar dome was taken out by a thirty thousand dollar drone. So we gotta, we gotta, we gotta take these things out before they can launch. That's what needs to happen. We needed, we need to dominate the sky in Iran and take out everything before it hits, before they can get, get their weapons into the air.
- [49:39]
Steve Bannon
Where do people, where do people go to get updates for you? You're putting it up.
- [49:42]
Neil McCabe
Where do they go?
- [49:43]
Steve Bannon
We only got a minute left.
- [49:45]
Taj Gill
You can go to cage frog 5 on x or that's on Instagram, but I don't post political stuff on Instagram because they'll ban me.
- [49:53]
Steve Bannon
Okay, so I'll, I need a, I need a, I need a hot cup of coffee. Where do I go Go to Warpath
- [50:00]
Taj Gill
dot coffee promo code war room. The website is Warpath Coffee and as always, use promo code war room. Right now, this weekend we're doing 15% off and just read the reviews. We had over 17,000 five star reviews. Is the best coffee. People absolutely love it.
- [50:16]
Steve Bannon
We may need to change that because people need coffee to stay up. Tage girl, thank you so much. Thank you for all the time you spent over there.
- [50:22]
Maureen Bannon
That hot chocolate that Tas put out sol out twice immediately, like as soon as it went up.
- [50:28]
Steve Bannon
So Tasia's daughters are most signed off. Okay, we're going to toss now to Andrew Covet in the Charlie Kirk Show. They're going to be up alive. They're. Oh, I'm going off the wrong clock. Look at that. I'm at the gold clock. I got more time. I could have kept Tasia up here. Here's. Let's go. I tell you what. Brandon Weikert. Brandon.
- [50:48]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
Yes.
- [50:48]
Steve Bannon
Brandon, give me an update. We got about 90 seconds. Give me the latest update you got before we toss to Covet in the Charlie Kirk Show.
- [50:55]
Brandon Weickert
Absolutely. So the war is not stopping. It is now expanding something that a colleague just sent to me. Be watching our Tomahawk land attack missile stockpile. They are dangerously low. They have not been procured in enough abundance yet and we are using them disproportionately. And this thing's just getting started. So we're not out of the woods yet. And be watching tonight for Iran's true counterattack. It's still coming.
- [51:24]
Steve Bannon
Weickert, where do people go? I want them on your Twitter feed nonstop. Where they go?
- [51:29]
Brandon Weickert
Athebrandon. Twitter X also check out my book the Shadow War on Amazon. And also I'm a Senior Editor at 1945.
- [51:39]
Captain Kathryn Fennell
Com.
- [51:40]
Steve Bannon
You did amazing work, sir. The last couple of weeks everybody goes to we the Brandon, thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Thayer, where do people go on your social media, Sir?
- [51:50]
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Steve, Brad Thayer next. And Bradley third. Getter and truth. So key issues here, Steve, are can you reject the. Can you eject the regime? And that's going to be critical through air power and through special operators. And what comes next? A military government as Sam suggested, or civil war.
- [52:12]
Steve Bannon
Thank you.
- [52:12]
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Which is also possibility.
- [52:14]
Steve Bannon
Thank you. Dr. Thayer. We're gonna have you back on. Don't know if we'll be doing coverage or not. Just keep watching Real America's voice and our social media, including Grace Chung. Grace will be kind of putting out stuff early on particularly. We're gonna come back live over the weekend. Wanna thank everybody. Wanna thank the Real America's Voice team so much we couldn't get to this morning but we'll put up on social media. Andrew Colvette the Charlie Kirk show follows. I think Poso is going to make a guest appearance over there. Hopefully we'll toss it now to Andrew in the Charlie Kirk Show. I want to thank Real America's Voice. We'll be up on social media all weekend as major combat operations in Persia commence. You know you still need help from the boss
- [53:01]
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- [53:30]
Steve Bannon
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.