THE WAR ROOM WITH STEPHEN K. BANNON, MARCH 12TH, 2026 (EP.#5209)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Real America’s Voice: THE WAR ROOM WITH STEPHEN K. BANNON

Episode: #5209
Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Stephen K. Bannon
Guests: Jim Rickards, Newt Gingrich, Eric Bolling, Beau French, Philip Patrick

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Episode Overview

This episode of "The War Room" dives deep into the current U.S.-Iran conflict, unpacking the military, strategic, and geopolitical ramifications following a string of high-impact military actions in the Gulf and heightened global tensions. Stephen K. Bannon is joined by a panel of political strategists, capital market analysts, and policymakers to examine the effectiveness of U.S. tactics, the durability of Iranian resistance, the economic consequences for global energy markets, and the path forward for American policy and national security. The show is rich in real-time analysis, “war room” style strategic debate, and often spirited exchanges about both U.S. performance and the stakes for 2024 and beyond.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. White House War Strategy and Failure to Plan

[00:32 – 02:28]

• Newt Gingrich argues the White House undertook the war with no clear strategic plan, pointing to shifting objectives: first regime change, then decimation of Iran’s nuclear program, then neither.
• Failures cited include lack of evac plans for Americans, surprise at predictable Iranian responses, and no robust plan for the Strait of Hormuz closure—“always their number one kind of point of leverage.”
• Gingrich warns that even if the U.S. pauses bombing, Iran may escalate economic retaliation, aiming to send a message to Trump and to future U.S. and Israeli leaders.

"You can see it in the failure to plan to get American citizens out of harm's way in the Gulf... I think most of all in the White House's lack of any plan for Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz." – Newt Gingrich [00:32]

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2. Military Progress & U.S. Tactics

[02:28 – 04:35]

• Bannon and panel agree the U.S. military campaign has rapidly degraded Iranian capabilities—navy, air force, proxies, and missile barrages have all been diminished.
• The U.S. is holding back more severe strikes (e.g., electrical grids, bridges, oil depots) as a form of psychological pressure.
• Bannon argues this campaign is both forceful and "compassionate," designed to minimize escalation, referencing historic timelines for past regime-targeting campaigns for perspective.

"When Trump and Hegseth say that we're only just getting started... that's a psyop to the Iranians to say we're holding a lot back." – Stephen K. Bannon [03:37]

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3. Domestic Security—Iranian Sleeper Cells

[04:35 – 05:09]

• Eric Bolling asserts that many potential Iranian sleeper cells entered via open border policies but claims U.S. authorities are monitoring them closely.
• The narrative connects border security concerns to larger national security implications.

"They came in through the open border policies of sleepy Joe Biden, one of the worst and the worst president in the history of our country. But we know where most of them are. We've got our eye on all of them." – Eric Bolling [04:49]

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4. Economic Warfare & Energy Markets

[05:12 – 09:54, 41:18 – 49:35]

• Continued Iranian action may target global shipping, energy infrastructure, and oil prices to gain leverage for negotiations.
• Bannon and Gingrich stress the vital importance of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. Even temporary closures could constitute a U.S. defeat due to global reaction to oil price shocks.

"If they can't keep it open, this war will in fact be an American defeat before very long because the entire world...will react to the price of oil if the strait stays closed very long." – Newt Gingrich [07:16]

• Jim Rickards critiques U.S. optimism: actual oil flows are paralyzed not by sunk ships but by insurance and owner risk aversion due to Iranian attacks “all the way up to Iraq.”
• Philip Patrick & Bolling note that tapping Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) is a band-aid fix; market traders aren’t convinced by temporary measures.

"Tapping an SPR is very, very temporary... It just puts a piece of gauze on a hemorrhage and sure enough, oil went straight up." – Philip Patrick [41:57]

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5. Strategic & Political Analysis—Victory or Quagmire?

[09:54 – 16:52, 18:40 – 22:32]

• Mixed White House messaging on war objectives ("excursion" vs. "unconditional surrender") “projects confusion” and undermines strategic clarity.
• Rickards distinguishes between tactical/military “brilliance” and the lack of clear strategic vision, warning that military victories can be nullified by strategic improvidence—citing Vietnam and Iraq as parallels.

"You have to separate the military performance from the strategic vision. The military performance has been about flawless...The problem is there's no strategic vision." – Jim Rickards [25:18]

• Iran's revolutionaries and proxies remain resilient, controlling key sectors and leveraging both religious zeal and regional chaos.
• The panel repeatedly references the failure of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan as sobering warnings.

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6. Iran’s Tactics: Horizontal Escalation

[32:49 – 36:17]

• Iran compensates for its inability to compete with U.S. firepower (“vertical escalation”) by widening the conflict (“horizontal escalation”)—disrupting shipping far beyond the Strait, bombarding ports in Iraq, Dubai, and threatening U.S. bases in Bahrain.
• Use of cheap drones is highlighted as a game-changing, cost-effective tactic.

"What the Iranians done is not vertical escalation...This is horizontal escalation... They're blowing up oil tankers not in the Straits of Hormuz, but in Iraq. They're bombing Dubai." – Jim Rickards [32:49]

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7. Implications for U.S. Politics and American Society

[38:09 – 39:36]

• The conversation pivots to domestic vulnerabilities, with Bannon warning that cultural and political “soft power” advances (immigration, political division) pose existential threats; “it ain’t in Tehran where your problem is. They're coming here and they're winning here.”

• Rickards calls attention to the religious dimension of the conflict, suggesting that U.S. policymakers underestimate the willingness of Iranian elites to die as martyrs and their capacity for dynasty and continuity.

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8. Energy Policy, Texas, and National Security

[43:43 – 46:42]

• Beau French (Railroad Commission candidate) underscores Texas's role in national security, energy dominance, and as a counterweight to troubled global supplies.
• He plans to roll back environmental and DEI regulations to boost U.S. energy output.

"Texas produces almost half of the oil and gas for the United States. And as President Trump rightly recognizes, energy is national security." – Beau French [43:43]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You can disagree with the war, but not the war effort. We are accelerating these bombing runs, and their offensive output is collapsing." – Stephen K. Bannon [02:28]
• "We've knocked out all of their boats... We have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. I don't care what it costs." – Eric Bolling [06:53, 07:16]
• "If we cut this short and Iran has reconsolidated its hardline elements... we could be in an even worse position." – Beau French [12:00]
• "Since World War II, we haven't had definitive victories... We lost in Korea, we lost in Vietnam and we've lost a global war on terror." – Stephen K. Bannon [36:17]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:32 – 02:28: Gingrich on strategic failure & Iran’s leverage.
• 02:28 – 04:35: Bannon & panel on U.S. bombing campaign & Iranian failures.
• 04:35 – 05:09: Domestic border security and Iranian sleeper cells.
• 05:12 – 09:54: Economic consequences, oil markets, and negotiation positioning.
• 09:54 – 16:52: Confused strategic messaging and mixed White House signals.
• 18:40 – 22:32: Jim Rickards critiques military vs. strategic success.
• 32:49 – 36:17: Iran’s use of “horizontal escalation” and cheap drone tactics.
• 38:09 – 39:36: Reflections on American wars and home-front vulnerabilities.
• 41:18 – 49:35: Energy markets, SPR failings, and policies for oil price control.
• 43:43 – 46:42: Texas energy policy and national security with Beau French.

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Analysis & Closing Tone

The episode is forceful, combative, and unapologetically critical of both U.S. leadership and global adversaries. The tone is deeply skeptical of mainstream establishment narratives and determined to expose what the hosts see as hard truths—from military realities in the Gulf to American vulnerabilities at home and failures of strategic vision. The interplay of seasoned military, political, and economic experts produces a fast-paced, high-stakes discussion, reflecting MAGA grassroots priorities and anticipating the political implications for 2026 and beyond.

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This summary covers the major themes, insights, arguments, and exchanges from the episode, including precise timestamps, speaker attributions, and the original language and tone.

Transcript

[Stephen K. Bannon]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human support is available 24.

[Jim Rickards]

7 with Verbocare.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help, because a great trip

[Jim Rickards]

starts with the right support.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Epic Fury. Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if you win, you know, you can only do. And we've won. Let me say.

[Jim Rickards]

We've won.

[Newt Gingrich]

I think we're at a very dangerous moment. It is clear that the White House did little to no strategic planning for this war. You can see that in the shifting objectives. Where at first this was a regime change war, then it wasn't. It was to re obliterate the Iranian nuclear program. And now that's not one of the objectives they list. You can see it in the failure to plan to get American citizens out of harm's way in the Gulf, to evacuate our embassies that were put in harm's way. You can see this in the fact that they were surprised that the Iranians have launched attacks against Gulf nations, even though the Iranians have threatened that multiple times over the years. And you see that, I think most of all in the White House's lack of any plan for Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. Something that everyone that's worked in the national security community can tell you has always been their number one kind of point of leverage.

[Eric Bolling]

That's the ace card that they have.

[Newt Gingrich]

And so now what you see is a president who clearly gets that this is a political problem for him. You can see a couple days ago, he started trying to talk about how we, you know, we're getting close to ending the war. Although then an hour later, he'll come out and say, but we still have weeks to go. You can tell he feels the problem. What I worry about now, look, I think the president is likely to end the war sooner rather than later. I think the military campaign probably has two weeks or so to go until it reaches its objectives. But the president may decide to stop the bombing. That doesn't mean Iran is going to end the war. They may decide that they have lost all of their other deterrent measures. They've lost their proxies that they had throughout the region. Their missile program has been decimated, first in the attacks last June and then over the course of the last almost two weeks. The one deterrent they have is the economic pain that they can cause us. And they may decide that they want to ramp the pain up, even if the president wants the war to end, to send a message to Donald Trump in the future and to future American Presidents and future Israeli prime ministers that they do have leverage and they're willing to use it.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You can disagree with the war, but not the war effort. We are accelerating these bombing runs, and their offensive output is collapsing. You have to look at it honestly. Like these two colleagues to my left said, everything that the Iranians have tried has failed. They tried to have a war of attrition, hunker down, let us run out of munitions and interceptors. That didn't work.

[Newt Gingrich]

They tried to hit the Arab allies.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

All it did was force them into America's arms. And then they tried to jack up the price of oil so the base felt the pain at the pump, and the market could pressure Trump to take a knee. That didn't happen. The market is stabilized. Oil's down to 80 bucks a barrel. And right now the strait's open. It's not completely, but they are moving tankers, and we have things we can do there. We can use ships as sentries. We could do escorts, or we could seize Kharg island and just, like, turn off their revenue with a little spigot. When Trump and Hegseth say that we're only just getting started, or, oh, they ain't seen nothing yet, that's not saying the war is gonna last forever. That's a psyop to the Iranians to say we're holding a lot back. We could be hitting their electrical grids, bridges, oil depots. What we're doing is that they act stupid. We're going to reserve those targets for that punishment. Right now, we're almost executing this war compassionately. This thing could be much, much bigger. The timing of the war is really intelligent because if you see the volley of these drones and ballistic missiles, imagine five years from now how much blood and treasure the American alliance would have to spend busting down these barrages to take out the nuclear program. Their goal was to build a shield around it so we couldn't even consider the strike. People have to be a little bit more patient. We took 10 years to nail bin Laden. Two years for Milosevic, eight months for Gaddafi, nine months for Saddam. Hitler died after six years. We got this guy in 50 seconds. You have to acknowledge how great that was.

[Newt Gingrich]

Years that way, and if they try to hit us back.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Have you been briefed about how many Iran sleeper cells there could be inside

[Eric Bolling]

the US Right now? I have been. And a lot of people came in

[Stephen K. Bannon]

through Biden with this stupid open border,

[Eric Bolling]

but we know where most of them are. We've got our eye on all of them.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I think you said Duncan.

[Eric Bolling]

They came in through the open border policies of sleepy Joe Biden, one of the worst and the worst president in the history of our country.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And we've got our eyes on all of them.

[Eric Bolling]

But the war itself is being prosecuted

[Stephen K. Bannon]

at a level that nobody's seen before. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing to watch. I mean if the US were to

[Beau French]

stop, why do you think the Iranians would continue?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Might be in part expression of domestic politics. You know, this is a regime that since 1970, 79 has defined itself in part as it's anti Zionist but also anti American, the great Satan. Nothing that's happened, shall we say in the last two weeks has changed any of that. They also want to show that they've got the ability and will to push back. They may want reparations, they certainly are going to want the relaxation of sanctions. So by continuing to act against energy

[Newt Gingrich]

to make it impossible for tankers to go through the straits, this gives them

[Stephen K. Bannon]

an awful lot of leverage. My own sense is no matter what

[Newt Gingrich]

the President says, we are moving towards

[Stephen K. Bannon]

something kind of a negotiation with Iran and they want to have some leverage.

[Newt Gingrich]

And by continuing the war that puts

[Stephen K. Bannon]

pressure on the United States. They read the polls, they look at

[Newt Gingrich]

stock markets, they look at the price of energy internationally.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

They know that by continuing the war that gives them an awful lot of leverage. Treasury Department buy oil futures as a means to keep the oil prices down.

[Eric Bolling]

Wouldn't it be in very good shape? You see what's happening.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

They are pretty much at the end of the line. Doesn't mean we're going to end it immediately. But are they got no navy, they've

[Eric Bolling]

got no air force, they've got no anti air traffic, anything. They have no systems of control. We're just riding free range over their countries. And now we're going to look very strongly at the Straits.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

The Straits are in great shape.

[Eric Bolling]

We've knocked out all of their boats. They have some missiles but not very many. I think we're in very good, we're in very good shape. Look, there are three huge challenges that this administration has tackled. The first is that, and they should have frankly moved on this on day one. They have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Yes.

[Eric Bolling]

I don't care what it costs if they can't keep it open. This war will in fact be an American defeat before very long because the entire world, including the American people will react to the price of oil if the strait stays closed very long. So I lived through this with Reagan as you did in the late 80s. Keeping the straight open is the number one job because it buys you time for the other, the two other jobs. The second job is we're going to discover that the Revolutionary Guard is tougher than we thought. It was better connected and have at least 200,000 people who are true believers and they have no future. I mean, front can say unconditional surrender. These folks know if they lose power, they have no future. The third challenge is how do you arouse and organize the street the 85 million or so people in Iran who do not want the current regime, but they're unarmed, they're unorganized, and that has to be solved. These three problems are going to decide whether this was a stroke of genius or, frankly, a step into quicksand. And I think that the president has to focus very hard on solving these three issues.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Jake Reserves victory would also mean the enemy and its surrogates would no longer be pouring missiles into northern Israel. But they are again tonight.

[Jim Rickards]

This is new video of it.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

The president declared victory today, and then just a few minutes later, he kind of undeclared it. We don't want to leave early, do we? Huh?

[Eric Bolling]

We got to finish the job, right?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

He said it several more times. We've got to finish the job. Yet this morning he also suggested there was little left to do, telling Axios Barack Rabi there was, quote, practically nothing left to target, a little this and that and saying, quote, any time I want to end, it will end. Now, if you're not already confused about that or whether we've won or not, listen to the President also today on what to even call what we are or aren't yet winning. And we did a little excursion. We had to take this little couple of weeks, few weeks of excursion. But it's been incredible.

[Eric Bolling]

Our military is unbelievable.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

The job they're doing, I would say, to put it mildly, way ahead of schedule. So I had to take an excursion. But it's doing well.

[Eric Bolling]

The market's holding up well, oil will be coming down. That's just a.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

That's just a matter of war. That happens very. You can almost predict it. You just said it is a little excursion and you said it is a war. So which one is it? Well, it's both.

[Eric Bolling]

It's both. It's a.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

An excursion that will keep us out of a war.

[Eric Bolling]

And the war is going to be.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I mean, for them, it's a war. For us, it's turned out to be

[Jim Rickards]

easier than we thought.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Publicly, President Xi Jinping's government is Striking a more diplomatic tone, calling for restraint, China's foreign minister Wang Yi says this is a war that should never have happened and a war that benefits no one. China has long been Iran's economic lifeline. Beijing buying most of their oil exports despite years of U. S led sanctions. And now U.S. officials say they're watching signs Beijing could soon provide more crucial financial support to Tehran. The war is shaking global energy markets. Oil prices surging to four year highs. Attacks threatening shipping routes in the Middle East. For China, the world's biggest energy importer, that's a serious risk. But strategically, Beijing may also see opportunity as the two superpowers compete on the world stage. With the CIA putting out these official recruitment videos brazenly and openly, luring Chinese officials to spy for the U.S. analysts say a prolonged war could pull American attention and military resources back to the Middle east and away from Asia, allowing China to flex its military muscle around Taiwan in the South China Sea and disputed islands near Japan without US Interference. We have crossed the Rubicon here, Anderson. We're in a very difficult situation.

[Beau French]

I believe it's important to carry out

[Stephen K. Bannon]

what is left of the military campaign.

[Beau French]

I can't put a timeframe on that. I'm sure within CENTCOM they have a

[Stephen K. Bannon]

sense and they're probably briefing the President.

[Beau French]

But if we cut this short and Iran has reconsolidated its hardline elements within

[Stephen K. Bannon]

the system, which they appear to have done, although we don't know exactly, and they can still reconstitute because they have enough of the capability on the missiles and the drones and maybe even the nuclear, we could be in an even worse position. And a final point, you know, Iran has had a strategic policy for decades, Anderson, to spread the revolution through terrorism, through proxies and to deter any blowback inside their own borders. And they've done that through what they see as deterrence.

[Beau French]

They used to have very good air defense systems.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Hezbollah very strong, used to be very strong on Israel's border with hundreds of

[Beau French]

thousands of missiles and rockets and missiles, drones.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So there was a deterrence against an attack. It's one reason no president has ever

[Beau French]

actually done this, if you've taken out those deterrent elements.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

But they have now restored their deterrence because they control the vital artery of the world and they now demonstrated they can use it.

[Beau French]

And it really bites.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You might actually come out of this where Iran might be weaker, but they have deterrence against any future attacks. So I'm looking at this strategically. It's a really precarious moment, Anderson, and I think the president's mixed messaging is not helping. It is Thursday, the 12th of March, in the year of our Lord 2026. We're going to get to the bottom of all this, break it all down for you so you can see every element of it and come to your own conclusion, which is most important right now. We need maga and we need the particularly the MAGA grassroots folks that would be this audience to really think this situation through. You're in the war room. We're going to start with Jim Rickards. We have Jim up in a moment. We got Eric Bolling here. Eric Bolling called shot yesterday about the release of the first off the IEA petroleum reserve, which I think they said there's going to be 400 million barrels released, also the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Anyway, we'll talk about oil, the straits, the Gulf. We will compare and contrast what you just heard. Jim Rickards, one of the best geopolitical strategists and capital market strategists. We'll start with. We're absolutely packed this morning. You're here in the war room. Take your phone out and text Bannon B A N N O N at 989-898. Get the ultimate guide for investing in gold and precious metals in the age of Trump. Check it out today. It's no obligation. It's totally free. And you get to get to Philip Patrick. And Philip Patrick will be on the show today. This evening we'll go through all of this. Short commercial break. Natasha Owens will take you out. Jim Rickards is going to bring you in,

[Eric Bolling]

But you don't know the cost. I thank God you're not the bar. What about Lake and Riley?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

It's surely too hard to say. What about when you took your shot

[Jim Rickards]

at the one you call King?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Philip Patrick]

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

the James Hardy alliance today. Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. Okay, welcome back. Philip Patrick tonight. Jim Rickards this morning. So you can't get two better thinkers about this. I'm gonna play Newt Gingrich and bring Jim on. We gotta hear this Newt again, because when you lose Newt, of course, Newt's a regime change guy. Guardian newspaper has a story this morning very well sourced from Israeli intelligence and Israeli political class about how they admit they were not ready for and they wanted regime change. They basically said it was a hope And a prayer, do some bombing. And people were going to rise up. That's why Netanyahu went public yesterday with, you have to rise up and overthrow. Overthrow the ayatollah, the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guard. That's not happening. And that's because of their many reasons. But the bombing on Saturday night, the firebombing of Tehran made this a Persian nationalist situation. So now we're in it. So everybody's talking about, hey, why do we get in this? Yes, there'll be plenty of time later for that. But we're in it now. We're in it and we need victory.

[Jim Rickards]

Now.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We gotta define victory, be very precise about it. But this is. This is as dark as it possibly gets. Let's play Newt Gingrich, and I wanna bring Jim Rickards in.

[Eric Bolling]

Look, there are three huge challenges that this administration has tackled. The first is that, and they should have frankly moved on this on day one. They have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

[Newt Gingrich]

Yes.

[Eric Bolling]

I don't care what it costs. If they can't keep it open, this war will, in fact, be an American defeat before very long because the entire world, including the American people, will react to the price of oil if the strait stays closed very long. So I lived through this with Reagan, as you did in the late 80s. Keeping the Strait open is the number one job because it buys you time for the two other jobs. The second job is we're going to discover that the Revolutionary Guard is tougher than we thought it was better connected and have at least 200,000 people who are true believers and they have no future. I mean, Trump can say unconditional surrender. These folks know if they lose power, they have no future. The third challenge is how do you arouse and organize the street? The 85 million or so people in Iran who do not want the current regime, but they're unarmed, they're unorganized, and that has to be solved. These three problems are going to decide whether this was a stroke of genius or, frankly, a step into quicksand. And I think that the President has to focus very hard on solving these three issues.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I gave a speech in June and said, the problem we have is not in Tehran. The problem we have is in the streets of New York City. Mendame today in a budget crisis. I think they're four or five billion dollars short and they're supposed to have testimony today. His director, I think of his own, B can't testify because he's fasting for Ramadan. If you've seen these photos coming out of New York City and New Jersey over the last couple days. You understand, during a war of conquest here through soft power. We're in a crisis, folks. Hope you take your number two prince a lot and write that down. Jim Rickards, your thoughts and observations, sir, where are we? Is Jesse Waters right or is Newt Gingrich right?

[Jim Rickards]

I take it Jesse Waters is a nice guy, but he's on another planet. I listened very carefully to the opening of the show and what he was saying in particular. He got about everything wrong. But in fairness to him, he's suffering the same confusion that I think most analysts and commentators are suffering. We'll talk about that in a second. As far as Newt Gingrich is concerned, he was exactly right. So he said three issues, keep the strait open, disable the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC and encourage an uprising in the streets. So that's the right analysis. But the United states is over 3, the straits are not open and there are a lot of reasons for that. They're not mined. There's no Iranian navy, but the insurance companies won't underwrite the cargoes and the vessels. The owners of the vessels, Norwegians, Greeks, whatever they want through the owners of the cargoes, Chinese and Asians, they don't want them blown up. The naval escort, fine, but Iran still has a lot of land based power. No air Force, no navy, got it. No mines, but they've got a lot of land based power. But what Iran has done, they've started blowing up tankers in near Basra in Iraq. They're not in the Straits of Hormuz. You can't even get to the Straits of Hormuz. The point is it's not, you know, the straits are a choke point, obviously geographically, but it's not just, it's not just the straits. They're blowing up tankers in the Persian Gulf all the way up to Iraq. And as long as that's the case, then that traffic is closed. No one's going to fill up a tank we know is going to set underway. Jesse Water said, you know, price of oil spiked to $120, which it did for about a minute. There was panic buying on Monday and it's back down to 80. Well, he said 80. Right now it's 95. I checked my ticker a few minutes ago. So oil's $95 a barrel. But regardless, it was $60 a barrel a month ago. So even if he goes 60 to 90, that's a 50% increase. So okay, forget 120 that was a super spike. But even at 90, you're going to shut down the global economy and you can'. Get the oil. Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, get rid of them. Yeah, good idea. They control 40% of the economy. They're not just an armed force and a Praetorian Guard. I mean, they perform functions like that. They control 40% of the economy, the oil industry, the transportation industry, et cetera, go to minerals and mining, etc. And they have for years. So they're a military force in one sense, but they've really taken over the Iranian economy. So you're talking about shutting down Iran as far as an uprising is concerned? They had an uprising about two months ago, and the, the ayatollah killed 5,000 people, just gunned them down in the streets. So, you know, you want to be the first one to, you know, come out of your apartment and start waving a banner? I don't think so. And it reminds me of, you know, Dick Cheney saying, when we, you know, in the Gulf War, well, 2003, when we get to Baghdad, they'll be lining the streets with flowers and American flags and greeting us. Not what happened. What you had was, you know, hundreds of thousands of people killed. They were, they didn't have guns. They were using electric drills to drill people in the head between the ships. So we're repeating all the same, Jim,

[Stephen K. Bannon]

but hang on, let me just ask you this. If we started, and the proposition was, and we hear this from Admiral Cooper and General Kane every day on the military, and Captain Fennell comes on here and helps us walk through the degradation, if we started with the nuclear program of whatever reality it was, if you start with the radars, if you start with the air defense systems, if you start with degrading their ability to project power against Israel and their Gulf neighbors as the starting proposition, and you weren't for regime change like we weren't. The issue is, and the problem is, is that the game has changed. The game has changed from Saturday night when you, when you, because there was this thought that the Iranian people would rise up, not the 30,000 that were killed a couple of months ago or a month ago, but. But even more to overthrow this radical and detested Islamic theology. But since the Revolutionary Guard and these guys have punch, they focus on two things. This is why I said, in the first couple days, folks, the center of gravity, in a Clausewitzian sense, is not Tehran and what they're bombing, it's the Gulf. They're going after our Gulf allies and they're hitting Desalination plants, water, and they're hitting their oil storage and refineries. And that's why Lindsey Graham comes on here after five minute juleps on TV and says, hey, hey, Saudi Arabia will offer you a pact in perpetuity, right? But you've got to step up here. You've got to start attacking. And why the Gulf nations are not attacking Iran. What they're doing is calling the President of the United States and saying, you got to get us out of here. We never signed up for this. Plus the fact that with drone technology, I was there at the beginning of this thing 47 years ago. My kid brother was a helicopter pilot on the Riesner USS Reasoner during the tanker wars that you talked about with Reagan, the 86, 87, 88 tanker wars where American Navy had to escort these ships through, as Captain Fennell laid out the other day. The difference is you didn't have drone technology that can swarm. The Navy goes in to stop the speedboats from coming along. They did the coal, although that was anchored the speedboats from coming and dropping a torpedo. And they had some radars, but the radars is very tough in the Persian Gulf and the Straits, as you know, Jim, for those radars. Now you have this swarm technology, these cheap drones that are just all over the place. The Navy said today, the Secretary of Energy said from the White House this morning that the Navy's not going to be prepared to even escort the ships to the end of the month. And I'm telling people that's not a panacea. It's not as simple as saying, oh, we're going to put a Navy combatant on every ship. It doesn't work like that. It's quite difficult to. It's quite difficult on the military evolution to actually escort the ships. And it's very difficult today. And the Revolutionary Guard knows how to play that game.

[Jim Rickards]

Jim Rickards well, that's exactly right. If you want to lose the war and lose the American people and lose MAGA all at the same time, just have a US Navy destroyer struck or badly damaged, doesn't even have to sink. The Navy said, we're not going to escort these tankers because we can't secure the Navy which comes first. The key thing to all this, Steve, you have to separate the military performance from the strategic vision. People mush them together. You got to separate. The military performance has been about flawless. We sank the Iranian navy, we sank their minelayers. We've eliminated practically all their S300 and S400 anti aircraft systems. We've achieved air supremacy, which is one notch higher than air superiority. We've blown up a lot of their missile launchers, not all of them. We wiped out their leadership. If we want to go into Cargill with Special Operations Command, we haven't done that, but that's feasible. So the military performance has been brilliant. You could say mission accomplished. The problem is there's no strategic vision. Now, about four or five days ago, President Trump said, I demand unconditional surrender. There are only two presidents in U.S. history who have demanded unconditional surrender. One of them was Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War. He wasn't president at the time, but he got the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant and he achieved it. The other one was FDR and World War II, who, along with Churchill, said, we insist on unconditional surrender of the Nazis and the, and the Japanese. And we got it. They were both successful in that. So those are, those are powerful words. It's a major statement.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Hang on one second. I want to get into all this in the next break. Rickards war room.com It's a landing page. You go there, you get access to Strategic Intelligence, which is a newsletter read by chairman of the board, big time investors, CEOs throughout the world. It puts you right into the C suite, where you should be. It's predicated on predictive analytics, of which we'll have Jim talk about when he returns. Strategic Intelligence available for you now @rickards war room.com this episode is brought to

[Jim Rickards]

you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need,

[Stephen K. Bannon]

explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives and

[Jim Rickards]

saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once,

[Stephen K. Bannon]

and Spreaker distributes it everywhere.

[Jim Rickards]

People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Start your show [e-mail] spreaker because if

[Jim Rickards]

you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. Okay, Bowling, who had a called shot yesterday as he has been on the situation Oil as the traders mentality. Beau French, also running to head the railroad Commission in, in Texas, which is about the oil and gas industry, not about the railroad industry, and are on deck and Jim Rickards is with it. Jim Rickards, continue on. Unconditional surrender. Abraham Lincoln had instrument to destroy the Confederacy and the army of Northern Virginia. That was Ulysses S. Grant, who understood that it had to be unconditional surrender or the Confederacy would have fought on forever. Same with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. You got to tell them there's no way out of here. President Trump put that message out a week ago. Continue on, sir.

[Jim Rickards]

Well, Trump put that message out and again, the word is very powerful. You're talking about Grant and fdr. Then four days later he says it's an excursion and technically it might be expeditionary force. Well, excursion. In 1916, General Blackjack Pershing, one of only two Six Star Generals in US history, invaded Mexico to chase Pancho Villa. And then he got and then came back. That's an excursion. But my question for the President is, which is it? Is it unconditional surrender or is it an excursion? I can debate both of those and maybe you can even defend both of those.

[Eric Bolling]

But.

[Jim Rickards]

But my point is they're projecting confusion. You don't say those two things within three days of each other and expect people to think that you have a coherent strategy, which they don't. So this is the problem now in terms of the other thing that Americans don't understand, the White House does not understand, and I don't know why they don't understand it. This is a radical theocracy. They don't understand the religious aspect of this. Samuel Huntington laid it out in 1991 in the clash of Civilizations. He said, take a map of the world, put a transparency over it, draw the line where blood is being shed, every battle in the world. Take another transparency and draw a line where all the, where the religious divides are overlay one on the other. They're the same whether it's Shiite, Sunni, Christian, Islam, etc. Now, the Muslim or the Muslim, but these particular Shiite, Muslim, they welcome death. They welcome it. They consider it the divine will of Allah. They're going straight to paradise. There's even a thesis which I don't have any strong evidence, but it's interesting that they gather the. I told him, the head of the Revolutionary Guard Crown, the Defense Minister. They gathered intentionally, knowing they were going to be hunted down and killed so they could all die at once and be martyrs. That's the mentality that is so distant from what people in the United States and the White House think. They don't understand what they're up against. So. And the second so going down the list, regime change, failure. We've had a leadership change, but we haven't had regime change. Now we got the mini Ayatollah. His Moshtaba is the son of Ayatollahi. He's clearly a puppet. He's going to do what the Iranian Revolutionary Guard core tell him. He's not a distinguished scholar. You know, he's got some mid level, you know, the, you know, religious credentials, but nothing, nothing personal. He's just going to do, he's just going to do what he's told. He's a puppet. The Guard Corps running the country. So there's no uprising. The Guard, they're not, they're, they're, they're

[Stephen K. Bannon]

not, they're not into, they're not into, they're not into hereditary. So. But it shows continuity. But what are they into? Because now we were all for, hey, you get over there. Get your stuff done. Get your punch list or your, or what the Navy and the, and the Air Force are doing with the, with your degradation. And then get an offer and let's get the hell out of here. However, the shift to go against the Gulf allies, which, trust me, they ain't allies, okay? We pretend they're allies because they're all bailing out and going after the Straits of Hormuz. Although, as you know, it doesn't really affect right now the supply of oil. It disrupts it. And the speculators get in there. We've allowed the Iranians to change the nature of this conflict. Correct. And that's why Newt Gingrich, when you lose Newt Gingrich, when you lose New Gingrich, they've changed the nature of the conflict. Conflict. And so now the Gulf and keeping the Gulf open becomes paramount, doesn't it?

[Jim Rickards]

That's exactly right. There are two, theoretically, there are two kinds of escalation. And you know, President Eisenhower, I rank him maybe top five presidents, and he's brilliant. He once said, when you can't solve a problem, enlarge the problem, make the problem bigger. And then you might see the solution now in terms of escalation, vertical escalation, if you want to call it that, is, you know, my weapons are bigger than your weapons. You send a bomb, I send a bigger bomb. Said, we keep going up. That kind of is the dynamic that was in play between the Soviet Union and the US during the Cold War. What the Iranians done is not vertical escalation. They can't do that. They can't match this weapon for weapon. This is horizontal escalation. They spread out the problem. They enlarged the problem, as Eisenhower would put it. Yes. And now they're blowing up oil tankers not in the Straits of Hormuz, but in Iraq. They're bombing Dubai. I know people who are moving a lot of wealth from Singapore to Dubai in recent months. They're like, hey, Singapore's a little too close to China. Dubai looked pretty safe. Not anymore. I mean, I've been there many times. Their places that are burning, they disabled to a great extent. People don't know. The Fifth Fleet, the United States Navy Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain. They've disabled those port facilities. Those vessels might have to go to Diego Garcia, which is four days each way. And so they. And that. But they've been doing this with drones. They still have some ballistic missiles. They. They don't. Yeah, they've been substantially degraded. And we have air. Air supremacy. But they've widened the war very inexpensively. By the way, as you know, these drones are about $10,000 a piece. So, yeah, they're driving a wedge between the Gulf states.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

But here's here. Okay, here's the question, though. For those of us. For those of. For those of us that were adamantly opposed to regime change. Change, Right. Regime change. Is Newton saying it. The reality, because of their ability to have a vote in this, they've now forced the issue around the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz that you almost have to have a regime change. I'm not saying I support that, but I'm saying just strategically, otherwise they're going to continue on and Iran's going to say, hey, for all the great American effort, for all the great American military, for all the Israelis bomb, we control the Gulf. Saudi Arabia doesn't control it. Big tough talking. MBZ doesn't control it. The Americans don't control it. We control it. Your thoughts, sir?

[Jim Rickards]

Well, I think that's exactly right. And by the way, we've been talking, we talked about the military aspects of this, where our performance has been great, but we're losing. And then we talked the strategic aspect of it, which is a muddle the White House just says has not had a clear message from day one, and they still don't. We haven't talked about the economy. Obviously, everyone understands the importance of oil. You're going to drive the entire global economy into a global recession at best and maybe a market panic. Because it's not just oil. We've been talking about it all but natural gas. Gutter has declared force majeure. It's a technical legal term, but it says all those contracts we signed, they're negated. You can't sue me. No damages, no contractual lawsuits. I'm just not performing because a greater force, force majeure has come into play. Well, this is like 40% of the world's natural gas. The US has, has a lot. Australia has some, but not enough to make up the difference. You know, Europe is going to have to buy natural gas from Russia. Think about that the last four years. Russia's horrible. They're evil.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Oh no.

[Jim Rickards]

We're giving, we're given, we're given India,

[Stephen K. Bannon]

we're given Russian, Russia's. And Russia's playing both sides. They're giving targeting information to the Iranians and telling us how they're buddies and they're going to play in India. Let me. The military performance, the valor of our arms, the courage of our troops, the tenacity of our war making capabilities in Korea and in Vietnam, in the global war on terror in Iraq. The march up country in Iraq, in Afghanistan originally with those volunteers, unparalleled, can't be questioned because you see the results of what these folks did in Korea and Vietnam in the global war on terror. And guess what? We lost in Korea, we lost in Vietnam and we've lost a global war on terror. You got Mandami sitting on rugs having what the IFTAR dinner or whatever it is, sitting on rugs with the portrait of Washington in front in front of you. You seen that in New York City. You got that? We're going Brandon hall on here from Texas on the state education board. You see what they're doing to change the history books in Texas? Understand what I've been saying about it ain't in Tehran where your problem is. They're coming here and they're winning here. They control New York City. And today in the middle of a budget crisis, the director of the budget can't talk because he's fasting for Ramadan on. Suck on that, right? Korea and Vietnam and the global war terror. We're here where we are today. Yes, we've got a military and this training and the kids, the young men and women that do it are the best that we got. Like they were the best in Vietnam and like they were the best in Korea. And look, Since World War II, we haven't had definitive victories. Go ahead, sir.

[Jim Rickards]

We lost the war in Vietnam, but we never lost a battle. We never lost a single battle in the, in Vietnam but we lost the war. And something like that is playing out in Iran today or in the Persian Gulf. Look at what the Marine Corps did in Hue after the Tet offensive. I mean, that was door to door, street to street. That was urban fighting and they prevailed. It was brutal, but they prevailed. We won that battle, but we lost the war. And in Iran, like I said, we sank the Navy, disabled the anti aircraft systems, wiped out the leadership. If we found many Khamenei today, I mean, I'm not being glib. What's his name? Mojaba. Let's say we killed him and that may happen, that could happen tonight. They'll just pick somebody else. The point is that's not regime change. He's, he's a puppet. They don't even believe in heredity.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

They did, they did that. They did that to get in Trump's grill. He's kind of a nobody. They did it to show continuity. They don't believe in hereditary. It's, it's kind of against their thing. They did it to say, suck on this. Here's how much we fear you suck on this, because they're dead enders. Okay, we gotta bounce. Jim, I, I need. Go ahead, sir, go ahead.

[Jim Rickards]

I was just going to say they'll keep doing it. We can kill five more supreme leaders and they'll pick another one. That's not regime change.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Jim Rickards, Strategic Intelligence. Give me a minute on why people should care and why should they go to your site? Why should they go to rickardswarum.com, why should they subscribe, sir.

[Jim Rickards]

Thanks, Steve. When you go to rickardswarroom.com, you can subscribe to our flagship publication. Strategic Intelligence comes out once a month. We put a ton of work into it, but what's behind it are predictive analytics. We have the best systems. And when I say that we're using base theory, behavioral psychology, history, complexity theory, etc. When I say we have the best systems, we have the track record to back that up. We called Brexit in 2016 when it was 70% remain. We called Trump's victory in 2016 when it was 92% Hillary. We were the only forecaster, the only one that said 312 electoral votes in 2024, including Michigan, seven out of seven swing states. You know, Nate Silver, all these other big names and not disparaging anyone. We were the only ones who got that right. So we have the track record to back it up. But what we say to our readers is we don't tell you what happened. We tell you what's going to happen next. That's our, that's our hallmark. That's our claim to fame. But we have the track record to back that up.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Jim Rickards, Rickards Worm.com and there wasn't a free book on fiat currency and artificial intelligence is to make your night even tougher. I've got about a minute here bowling. I don't have time to play what you did, but dude, you're so good. You told us, hey, the IEA strategic reserve of 400 million, what is it? Barrels. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If you do it, it's going to go up. We did it. And I think it, I think oil went up eight bucks at one time. Tell us again. Give me 30 seconds for a break.

[Philip Patrick]

Yeah, I'll give you. Why was that bowling? So last night we've been talking about how useless tapping into SPRs are, whether it's the Massacre International. Steve, you text me last night with a headline, axios, by the way, great call on that pipeline. Axios headline saying Trump said he's going to tap our spr. And my answer to you was terrible idea. It's never worked. And it doesn't solve the problem. It just puts a piece of gauze on a hemorrhage and sure enough, oil went straight up. I'll just very quickly the reason why, Steve, oil traders are smart. They realize there's no real plan to solve this thing. Tapping an SPR is very, very temporary.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Hang on for one second. Beau French running to head the railroad commission in Texas. That means the top oil and gas guy, Eric Bolling, in the pits with amazing insights and a called shot yesterday right here in the war room. Short commercial break Back in a moment. Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. For those of you old enough to remember back to the early 70s, the Arab oil crisis, remember the lines of cars around the corner and one of the things that brought down, one of the many things that brought down Carter's presidency, but also with Nixon, there was this big issue all of a sudden. The Middle east, which we'd never really paid that much attention to, all of a sudden became had an impact in everybody's life where that cartel that kind of met in Geneva of these Arab nations, the oil producing nations, based their cartel nature around a relatively obscure institution in the great state of Texas, and that would be the Railroad Commission. It is not about the railroads. It is about the control of oil and gas. Beau French is running for that. And say the head of it is a publicly elective office. Bo, you're in the middle of this. This. Why is the Railroad Commission important? Why should people pay attention? And most importantly today, when we talk about what's happening in the Straits of Hormuz and we're Takarg island, we're going to send the 82nd Airborne in to seize their assets, we're taking incoming from drones. Why is the position you're running for one of the most important positions in the United States of America, sir.

[Beau French]

Thanks for having me on. You're absolutely right.

[Philip Patrick]

Right.

[Beau French]

Texas produces almost half of the oil and gas for the United States. And as President Trump rightly recognizes, energy is national security. And so given the focus here in Texas, given President Trump's focus on Venezuela, his focus on Iran, his recent announcement two days ago of the new first in 50 years refinery that they're building in South Texas, I think this just shows that he recognizes how important it is. And so I'm running for this position because. Because I'm running against an incumbent who performed the worst ever for an incumbent in an election, which is why we're in a runoff. And because he's straddled the industry with, or, excuse me, saddled the industry with new regulations, environmental regulations, increased cost on operators, which is just the wrong direction. We need energy dominance here in Texas and in the United States. And so look, I think that, that when you talk about energy, when you talk about what's happening in the world, there's lots of criticisms to be thrown around about how things are prosecuted militarily around the world. But I think at the end of the day, what we have to do is, and I think this is really important, I never judge President Trump on what he says. I always look at what he does. And so we'll see how this ends up in Iran. But control of the first largest oil reserves in the world, in Venezuela, the third largest oil reserves in the world in Iran. Clearly, this is an important issue. You know, when, when just, you know, a little military action over there around the Straits of Hormuz, you know, spikes oil prices, I think consumers recognize how important the flow of free flow of oil, you know, around the world really is. And so given how much we produce here in Texas, we need to be producing more here in Texas. We need to be drilling more. We need to free up our operators to produce more oil. Okay, so that's why I'm running.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So I hear that, I hear that if we want, if we want full spectrum energy dominance, I think a lot of People thought well, well heck, we're there. You're saying we're not. So what is give me two or three things you're going to do immediately to get us back to full spectrum energy dominance from the state of Texas?

[Beau French]

Yeah, you're exactly right. The first thing is we're going to roll back the new Biden era EPA type environmental regulations that they saddled the industry with just this last July. So we really haven't even felt the effects of those yet. Which means we can reduce the break even point for operators, which is good for consumers, it's good for jobs in te. The other thing we have to do is they've had this like bizarre obsession with dei. We're going to roll back all of the DEI contracts they've been awarding. We're just going to eliminate that totally. So those are the two big things I would say. And then just as a statewide elected official, I view that we need to have elected officials who fight for the values of America. Right. And so just having that platform doing what I've been doing for the last couple of years, just being a fierce advocate America first warrior for the values that make America great.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Great BO where can people find out more about you and your campaign? Where do they go?

[Beau French]

Yeah Steve, the best place is my website beaufrench.com or on X. I'm their prolific poster on X. BeauFrench TX

[Stephen K. Bannon]

comes in a little hot folks. Go follow Beau French, one of the most important positions, elective positions in this country. Thank you Beau. Appreciated you.

[Beau French]

Thank you Steve.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

A real warrior right there. So yesterday 24 hours ago you did called shots on on this petroleum reserves and you also had some, you've had some ideas you put, you've put forward to the White House. So 24 hours later bowling as we rolled you out of the rack are we are you feeling better? Directionally aware this is going hopefully to the sunlit uplands or is Eric Bolling not feeling better, sir?

[Philip Patrick]

No feeling I'm feeling like we're headed into some badlands. Couple of things. So Steve, we talked yesterday about don't release SPRs, certainly not in America ours for emergency use only. We don't have an emergency supply problem in America. And then you texted me last night Trump just said he's going to release it. And I said this is a terrible idea. And sure enough overnight oil trip traded the Brent crude oil traded $100 a barrel. We trade around $95 a barrel in West Texas intermediate. I would like to tell you there's a and it won't work. Releasing SPR oil never works. It's a temporary and I think traders realize that if this is all we got. Oh, so what happens? Just now with some breaking news right now, per Reuters, Trump announces that he's going to suspend this Jones and Act. Suspend The Jones Acts 100-year-old act law that will, when he suspends it, allow foreign tankers to help supply our ports. Like right now, you have to have US built and manned tankers that pull into US ports for 100 years. It's happened, it's been suspended a couple times. Here's the point. These SPR releases and suspending these Jones act, they, they don't have any effect. In fact, it was was just announced and oil is still over a hundred dollars a barrel for the Brenton, 95 for us. I'll tell you what's happening, Steve. I'm like it or not, they've got the solution. I sent it in via of you and me talking about it to all. They have it. I'm just hoping that they're going to show him and they're not going to hold it back because they didn't come up with it internally. Because the ideas are coming up internally, unfortunately are band aids on hemorrhages. And it's going to get worse. Oil prices are going to go up. And I will tell you this, I said this to you. I'm going to play this oil market to go down. I'm gonna, I hope it gets to 120 because it is going to be back at 80, 70, $80 in no time. There are so many simple solutions that for whatever reason, the administration seems to be ignoring.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Okay, let's take a, let's take a short commercial break. I'm gonna keep Eric. We've also got the Mass Deportation Coalition. Huge story. One of the lead stories in Politico today because why. Let me hang on, wait for. Oh, polling. Just like, just like the Brownstone guys and Dr. Jeffrey Tucker came out with their massive polling about the Make America Healthy Again movement and the reality where two thirds of the American people support many things that Bobby Kennedy's working on. So you're going to be shocked. Folks in this country support deportations, lots of them. The math is there. It's going to be presented. Eric Bowling, Rosemary Jenks, Mike Howell, next

[Beau French]

in the war room.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Beau French]

Guaranteed Human.