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- [00:00]
Steve Bannon
This is an I Heart podcast. Eternal Father grants me great to all glories.
- [01:19]
Steve Gruber
On earth.
- [01:38]
Jim Rickards
Forever.
- [01:42]
Steve Gruber
From every.
- [02:14]
Jack Posobec
For 250 years, America's Navy has guarded freedom, projected strength and carried the fight across the sea. Now, from Norfolk, Virginia, history meets destiny.
- [02:28]
Steve Bannon
They fight, fight, fight, and they win.
- [02:34]
Jack Posobec
President Donald J. Trump joins America's warriors aboard a mighty aircraft carrier as we celebrate two and a half centuries of sea power. Explosive demonstrations, military might, unstoppable strength, Navy 250, sea power and freedom with your host, Steve Bannon with live reporting from Jack Posobec and Steve Gruber starts right now.
- [03:10]
Steve Bannon
This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people. I got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big lie? 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.
- [03:51]
Jack Posobec
War ROOM here's your host, Stephen k. Ban.
- [04:01]
Steve Bannon
Sunday, the 5th of October in the year of our Lord 2025. Welcome for our all day coverage of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States Navy. President Trump was able to carve this out of the schedule. We're going to have a quite a show today, a actual live fire naval exercise that the President, United States Commander in Chief, will actually witness live in a carrier strike group. Our own Jack Posobec, a naval intelligence officer, will be with the President. He'll be leaving Andrews Air Force Base in the next couple hours to go to Norfolk, Virginia. And of course, Steve Gruber, the great Steve Gruber actually be out on one of the combatants during the day and we're going to have a host of analysts, strategists, people that know the United States Navy backwards and forwards. We're going to try to frame today the United States Navy's just not the history of it, the glorious history of it, but also where we are today and kind of quo Vadis, whither thou goest on the greatest navy in mankind's history. Want to thank real America's voice, Parker and Rob Sig. The logistics of this have been pretty daunting. Also Want to thank the White House. I think we're going to get some, since we're doing this all day, as we did with Charlie Kirk on the great memorial for Charlie Kirk and we did at the Kennedy center for the prayer vigil, and we've done over and over again, we're going to get some, I think, special insights and maybe even a little access to special footage. So stick around. It's going to be a Incredible, incredible day. Six months. Lexington Concord was what, April of 1775, and then Bunker Hill followed shortly thereafter. Mid June, what, 17 June, 1775. The Founding Fathers were pretty smart. They knew they were at war right then. Didn't take the Declaration of Independence or kind of the War Proclamation that would come later. It's a traditional birthday of the American, of the American Republic. They knew war was coming. They knew they were already in a fight. And so they established the United States Army. And on the 13th of October of 1775, the Continental Congress, who didn't have a lot of ability to raise revenue, knew they needed something to stand up to the, to the Royal Navy. My two co hosts throughout the day, Captain Jim Fennell and Cleo Pascal, they're going to, they're going to be joining me and I'm also going to have many, many other people during the day. Claire, I want to start with you. You're a senior economist over at the Sunday Guardian. You spent so much time for us explaining really, naval strategy and the importance of the Pacific in that strategy. Give us your sense of how important today is. And I think President Trump, in highlighting to the American people the importance of the power and might of the United States Navy.
- [07:01]
Cleo Pascal
It'S incredibly important. It's an exciting day. I'm so glad you're covering it. And with Captain Fennell on top of it, it's worth remembering that during the 19th century, it was Britain who ruled the waves. But after World War II, it was definitely America. And if you look at that whole series of presidents between 1961 and 1981, they all served in the Navy and went to the capacity or another. Then you had Reagan, who, you know, through no fault of his own, served in the army, and then you're back to Navy. So the whole making of modern America was made under naval presidents, and they understood the value of the Navy, of that hard power, not just speaking softly, and how the Pacific was really central to American security and prosperity. So the fact that this is being done and celebrated in the way it is is truly showing what the heart of American Economic, political and I'd have to say moral leadership has been because although it conquered most of the Pacific after World War II, it didn't stay. It moved back. The US came back to itself. It created relationships, key relationships with allies and partners in the region. But it wasn't a colonizing power. So this is a new kind of navy, not the British navy of the 19th century. This is a navy that really wants peace and growth through strength without the sort of dominance and control that you had previously seen.
- [08:36]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, we're going to have a lot of conversation about today, shipbuilding, the cost of it, all of that, as we as President Trump highlights the striking power of the United States Navy. I think the, the live fire exercise off the Virginia Capes today will be pretty awe inspiring for people, but it comes at a cost and you have to have trade offs. We're going to be talking about hemispheric defense also throughout the day. To add to the drama of this, President Trump is negotiating peace in the Middle East. And so he's still got his deadline, although he has negotiators over in Egypt right now at the Red Sea, over at the resort at the Red Sea negotiators. I think he's still the 6 o' clock deadline still there. So we're going to have updates throughout the day. Captain Fanon, I might add Captain Fennell is a legendary figure, a revered figure among all naval officers for his truth to his insights and his truth telling. Captain Fennell, I know you just had a great piece up. I think it was an American greatness on sea power, current sea power. But put in perspective the importance of the United States Navy and the arc of American history. The Founding Fathers who were in the Revolutionary generation, pretty smart, they realized they were in a gunfight already in 1775. Yes, the Declaration of Independence came and people celebrate that as the beginning of the country. But I always argue the country really started at at Lexington Common in a Concord Bridge and after Bunker Hill, they knew they were in a gunfight. That's where they needed an army and they certainly needed a navy, sir.
- [10:11]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, first of all, Steve, thanks for having me on. It's a privilege and honor to be with you. Cleo and the war room Posse. This is a very great day to remember the history of our Navy and the fact that the United States of America isn't just a single land power, but we're also a maritime power and we're probably the first great power in the history of the world to balance land power and naval power throughout our history and as you pointed out, when the Revolutionary War started and we started this nation, we had to get rid of the British redcoats off of our land. But our founders understood the importance of sea power and it grew throughout our 250 years. We can go back and look at Teddy Roosevelt's great white fleet at the turn of the 20th century. And then we can certainly look at what happened in World War II with the growth of the Two Ocean Navy act that helped us win World War II in the Atlantic and the Pacific. So this is a really tremendous day. It's a day that we should remember that we are a naval power and a ground power. Today we'll focus on the maritime.
- [11:24]
Steve Bannon
We're gonna go through it throughout the day. In fact, one of the interesting things of history, the live fire exercise will be on the gunfire range off of Norfolk, the Norfolk Naval Base, which is, I still think the largest naval base in the world and the town I was born right outside of Norfolk. Navy the Norfolk Navy base in Ocean View, Virginia, off of the Virginia Capes. We're going to have the live naval exercise is the key naval battle of the Revolutionary War where the French Navy came to cut off Cornwallis and the expeditionary force of the, of the British army and therefore technically, I guess, basically ended the American Revolution. Alex de Grasse is going to join us. His relatives were very directly involved in that and he'll explain everything about the Battle of the Virginia Capes. We're going to have history, strategy, operations and a couple of hours, I think, I hope, of good old fashioned Navy power from our, from our naval, the naval air assets, the surface assets, the carrier submarines, all of it. And the commander in chief overseeing it from a carrier strike group. Stick around. You're in the war room. Real America's Voice coverage all day of the 250th Navy 250 in the naval operation that President Trump will oversee. Take a short break, be back in a moment.
- [13:06]
Jack Posobec
We'll be right back with more Navy 250, sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsors, Birch Gold Group, patriot mobile and amac for standing with rav. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor amac for standing with rav.
- [13:40]
Steve Bannon
Okay, welcome back. I've got Jim Burkers who's going to join us here in a moment because we're going to get a lot of geopolitics in here, a lot of strategy because you have to kind of set the framework. Particularly folks, if you obviously you follow the War room. One of the most fundamental pivots that we're going through under America first, because we're not isolationists, there is an isolationist wing, there's no doubt about that in the America first movement. And we cherish those folks. President Trump's not an isolationist. He's engaged throughout the world. He's trying to bring two wars, two bloody wars to an end right now, one in the Middle east and one in the Bloodlands in Ukraine. Also, at the same time, trying to stare down the Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea and Taiwan. But for the first time Since World War II, there is, and I would say actually since a rise to power in the Spanish American War as a global power, there is now a kind of a pivot back to what would be hemispheric defense. And we are trying to, here at the war room, make sure that we're defining hemispheric defense appropriately. And this is why Cleo and her work in the Pacific has been so vitally important. We're getting into that. Captain Fernand, I want to go to you about, really, in the history of the Navy, you had the Revolutionary War, which were. We're essentially a group of freebooters, I would guess. You had John Paul Jones and, you know, Commander, what Barry, you had. We really weren't an organized Navy in 1812. We played a much bigger. We played a big role in the Revolution, don't get me wrong, but more of a decisive role in 1812, obviously a very decisive part of the Civil War. That's never really been, I don't think, that well documented how important the Navy was in the Civil War, and particularly keeping us out of war with Great Britain during the Civil War, which a lot of people in the Confederacy were pushing for. But then really, it's the Spanish American War. And I want to tie this to, you know, President Trump as much as he relates to Andrew Jackson and other populists. Right. And Reagan. He is very fond of McKinley because of McKinley's global view, and particularly on terrorists. But also McKinley in the Spanish American War, the late 19th century, those young men that had been on the battlefield of the Civil War, when they actually came to actually guide the country in the Spanish American War, we really became a global power and the beginning of a true naval power globally. And for the rest of our time, really the United States Navy, as much or maybe even more than the army, has defined American geopolitics. And now we find ourselves in the 21st century at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century at a fundamental crossroads of the American Empire and the expansion of the American empire. And what's really going to happen? What can we afford? What's right? And this is a debate that's going on and it's centered on the United. A lot of it's centered around the role in place and strategic necessity of the United States Navy. And even in that, what that Navy will look like is the 12 or 13 carrier battle group strategy of force projection. Something that's from ancient times and with drones and artificial intelligence. And we are going to have people on later in the day to talk about drone warfare, to talk about artificial intelligence and how it's changing naval warfare. Just your thoughts on the United States Navy is kind of because Manifest Destiny, I think the brilliance of that generation that was in late 19th century Manifest Destiny did not end at the shoreline of the Pacific. They viewed as a continental power, but a continental power that projected all the way to the three island chains in the Pacific and really to open Japan and then China. They saw us as a global power. Right. It's the whole reason that we fought the Spanish American War. Your thoughts, sir?
- [17:40]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yes, Steve. There's no question that the Spanish American War was kind of the beginning of our global naval operations in a serious way. And from that time it continued, as I mentioned before, the Great White Fleet. But that foray into the Far east and the constant presence that we had there and the ability to project our power and achieve our national objectives of that time that blossomed under, under the 20th century in the foundations of what came out of World War II, where for the last 80 years we have been the global naval power. We've been the top Navy. As I, you know, when I entered the Navy in 1986 and got commissioned, we had almost 600 warships. We were by far the largest navy. You know, we were certainly at the end of World War II, but we sustained that throughout the Cold War. And what we've seen over the last four decades essentially is a drawdown where we've cut the Navy in half, while at the same time this peer competitor called the People's Republic of China has now got the largest navy in terms of numbers of ships, numbers of anti ship cruise missiles at sea that are vital for victory at sea and war at sea. And they're also fielding now these new unmanned vehicles, like extra large unmanned undersea vehicles that they're testing off of Hainan island or unmanned surface vehicles that they unveiled this week, a trimaran that's going to be part of what they call their kill web. So we're now at this point where we kind of neglected and ignored the Navy component of our national security structure. Not in terms of dollars spent and numbers of ships, in terms of carriers and things of that nature, but our overall strategy of making sure that we stayed ahead of pure competitors. We've kind of let that atrophy for a number of reasons. And now the question is, what are we going to do about it? As you suggested just now, what's the path forward and how are we going to get there? And this step today where the President of the United States is going to see onboard an active carrier I don't think has been done since President Bush went aboard and, you know, declared victory in the Iraq war. It's been a long time, and that was an actual shooting war. Here we are this time in essentially a war against the Chinese, a cold war, and our president's going to sea, and he's saying this is important. And the speech that he gave last week in Quantico, he also talked about victory at sea and the fact that we need to be victorious at sea. And that's something that our Navy leadership, you know, they talk about, they fund in certain aspects. But we really haven't been thinking about having victory at sea in the same way that we watched soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan when they were getting blown up by IEDs on their Humvees were being overturned and people were being killed. We didn't retreat into our garrisons and say, oh, well, IEDs are killing us. Let's not go outside of the base. No, we figured out a way to up armor our Humvees, put Kevlar on our people, and. And we took the flight to the bad guys in the desert arena, but in the naval arena. We've been afraid essentially of Chinese missile systems, whether it's a DF21D or the DF26, or now these new hypersonic missiles like the DF17. And we had a mentality that says, well, we can't operate inside those weapons envelopes, so we're going to have to continually move to the east. And I think what I heard the President say last week was, no, we need to be able to operate inside those weapon envelopes, take the hit and keep fighting. And that's the spirit and attitude that I really like to see. And I hope it infuses a. It lights a storm inside the Pentagon.
- [21:28]
Steve Bannon
I think. I think President Trump looks at this not as Bush's mission accomplished. I think he looks at this as His Teddy Roosevelt moment, which he does relate to Teddy Roosevelt, particularly Teddy Roosevelt was welded to American naval power. The Great White Fleet Review, I think the Great White Fleet Review under Roosevelt actually took place in Norfolk, if I remember correctly. It went all over the world. But I think actually the President went down and reviewed it at. Because Norfolk, the Navy base at Norfolk since the Civil War has been the principal naval base of the United States Navy. And I know the. Although Captain Fennell and I are Pacific Fleet sailors, it is the largest and I think most complicated naval base in the world. You've got the Little Creek Amphibious Base right there. You got Oceana Naval Air Station. It is quite a compound there in Virginia beach and Norfolk. Real quick, before I go back to CLIO and to bring Jim Rickens the conversation, you hit on a point. I want people to understand we've had this moment kind of before. When I came off sea duty in the late 19. In 1980, I got back to D.C. as I told people right before the inauguration of President Reagan, went to work as a junior officer for the Chief of naval operations, op090X, which kind of ran the board of directors of the Navy, the flag officers. Admiral Staser Holcomb was my direct boss. And then of course, the great Hayward, who was a Navy fighter pilot, was the Chief of Naval Operations at that time. We came off Jim, and the first thing that struck us and we could see this under Carter and was one of the reasons, even as a junior officer in the workup we had left, we had rotated back right before the strike to get the hostages out. But you could tell it was, you know, you didn't have the capacity, the lift capacity. I mean, there was a lot of complication, different helicopters, different systems. It was, it was. We tried to do the best we could. People in the work up to it every day, but you saw where the problems are going to be. Also the Navy, I think, had gotten under, I think around 200 capital ships, right? Actual function. I think maybe the Overall number is 250, but I think the real number was 200. One of Reagan's first things in his. Because, remember, Reagan was different than Kissinger or different than Nixon. Different than all of them. Different. This wasn't about containment. They were coming off the George F. Kennan containment strategy. What he wanted was victory against the evil empire. One way they knew they could do it was to bury the Soviets under our technology and particularly our naval power. And he committed immediately to build a 600 ship Navy immediately. It was one of the biggest things in the defense budget that shook up people back then, right. They were kind of shocked, how do we afford it? What are we going to do with this navy? But it was absolutely essential. Just the building of that was essential. It put the Soviets back on their back foot. They really never could comprehend how they would compete with really a navy that had 600 warships. Give me a minute on that before we go to break. Captain Fanell.
- [24:36]
Captain Jim Fennell
Yeah, that's a vitally important history, Steve. At that time, as you were in making that transition to the Pentagon, the Soviet Navy was the biggest navy in the world and they were operating globally in the Mediterranean, in the Pacific, they had, you know, Yankee ballistic missile submarines operating off of our east and West coast within two or 300 miles, putting our capital at risk within minutes from a ballistic missile attack. They were operating in Cuba. They were everywhere. And what President Reagan, as you rightly said, he said it was a we win, you die kind of mindset for him compared to, compared to the containment strategy that had gone on before in the Cold War. And he unleashed something.
- [25:19]
Steve Bannon
Hang on one sec.
- [25:20]
Captain Jim Fennell
Change the balance of power.
- [25:21]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, hang on. We're going to come right back to that. We got Jim Rickards is joining us for Geopolitics. Captain Fennell's with us on all things Navy. Cleopasquel. We're going to be joined by others, I might also add, Captain Fennell. They were in the North Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. They had a fleet, they had a sweet, small armada monitoring our every move. The Russian Navy was everywhere. President Reagan took it on. We're taking a short commercial break. We'll be back in the war in just a moment.
- [26:04]
Jack Posobec
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with Rav. Welcome back to Navy 250, sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor, Birch Gold Group for standing with rav.
- [26:34]
Steve Bannon
Okay, I want to thank, I get my co host, Captain Jim Fennell that joins us, one of the most brilliant men I've ever met about the United States Navy, its history and its firepower and the geopolitics, all of it, Cleo Pascal. As you know, Cleo has kind of taken the lead on really what is the strategic heartland of this country, the importance of the Pacific and the geopolitics of defense of the homeland or hemispheric defense as we talk about it. We're going to get into all that in detail today. Jim Rickards joins us. Michael Pack, the great filmmaker Michael And I have made two films. Michael directed, I executive produced two films about the Navy. Number one was the last 600 meters, which I guess was Marine Corps and Army had a part of it. Mo will feel good about that. But he also directed a brilliant film, Rickover. We made the film, the only film about Admiral Rickover. I think that's kind of a non documentary with Tim Blake Nelson playing Admiral Rickover. It's absolutely magnificent and a hidden gem. Jim Rickards, you're my guy on geopolitics, capital markets. We're here at an inflection point in the 21st century. I might also add when you talk about the last time this happened. Bush went after Mission Accomplished. President Trump is coming out today to a carrier for a carrier strike group or a carry battle group, as I still call it, to watch a gunfire naval exercise with missiles, guns, you know, jets, helicopters, all of it, submarines, all the assets the Navy brings together. Maybe we have a demo. I think we got two. As Monica Crowley speaks today, Ambassador Crowley is going to be one of the early speakers, a couple of Navy SEALs. And we are going to have Erik Prince and Taj Gill, two Navy SEALs join us in the 12 day war, I think, and I'm not saying this because I'm a Navy guy, but I continue to argue the most destructive capability of the total obliteration at the 12 Day War. And God bless our air assets coming out of Nebraska and delivered that decisive blow to the Iranian or the Persian nuclear power program. But the good old United States Navy and I think fast attack submarines delivered 30 Tomahawk missiles that took down at least 40% of the capacity that was out there that the Israeli Air Force was unable to take out. These were kind of surface facilities. And so I think the Navy still proves that it's got striking power everywhere in the world. What are the geopolitics of this, Jim? How big a day is this? How important and President Trump really coming out. And like you said, hey, I know sailors are not supposed to know how to march. I'm not, I'm not looking for him to march. Let's go out and let's light things up. Let's have a naval gunfire exercise, sir.
- [29:22]
Jim Rickards
That's right, Steve. By the way, for the benefit of the audience, I'm coming to you from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is the home of John Paul Jones. Jones house is just a few blocks away from where I'm sitting right now. Some of my neighbors have flags up front. You know, don't give up the ship. But in the other Direction is Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the oldest naval shipyard in the country, established in 1800. And there are three nuclear powered attack submarines sitting there right now a couple hundred yards from where I'm sitting. My wife once asked me, you know, a couple of years ago in Putin and they were saber rattling. She said, you think the Russians will fire nuclear missiles at us? And I said, we are very high on the list. I can, I can assure you that. But to your point, Steve, what I'd like to do, I'd like to go up to around 61,000ft. That's my personal best. And talk about two geniuses. One is Halford Mackinder and the other one is Alfred Thayer Mahan. They were roughly contemporaries. Makinder was born in 1861, Mahan was born in 1840. Mackinder was the genius, the father of geopolitics and the genius of land power. Mahan, of course, was the genius of sea power. His major books, the Role of Sea Power in History. Now, Mahan said a lot of things we're quite familiar with. And the Navy carries out, number one. To be a global power, to be a world power, you need to control the sea lanes. And that begins obviously the vessels in the Navy. You know, you start there, but you identify the choke points and we know what they are. The Straits of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca, the three island chains off the coast of China in the Western Pacific. You identify the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar. We know what the choke points are. But to do that you need a series of bases. You can't just send a ship, you know, 8,000 miles and expected to arrive, first of all, won't arrive quickly and secondly, may not be in very good shape by the time it gets there. The Russian Navy found that out the hard way. In the Russian Japanese War, the Japanese sank the Russian Pacific Fleet. And Czar Nicholas said, no problem, we'll send the Baltic Fleet over to Vladis Vostok. But by the time they got there, it took months to get there. They were exhausted, low on fuel, long provisions, and the Japanese sank the Baltic Fleet. So at that point, Russia sued for peace. By the way, that peace treaty of the Russian Japanese war was settled here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire under, under the direction of Teddy Roosevelt. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for that. But, but to get back to Mahan and Mackinder, so Mahan said, you need the navy, you need the, the choke points, you need a series of bases, but in addition to that, you need financial capacity to carry all that Out. And I once met with Andy Marshall. He was in his 90s when I met him. Unlike Biden, he actually was sharp as attack. He had served every president from Nixon to Trump. And something called the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, geeky name. No one's ever heard of it, but it was, they were the futurists. The officer Net Assessment was.
- [32:18]
Steve Bannon
But hang on, but hang on, hang on one second. When I was in the Pentagon, this is just like Michael Pack and I made a movie about Rickover. Michael had come up with the idea, said that I think at the time only 3% of the, of the American population knew Rickover's name or was familiar with it. And this is one of the giants of the 20th century. And our security evolves from the thinking and actions of Admiral Rickover. Andy Marshall is probably at zero. Andy Marshall is one of the most significant individuals behind the scenes in the entire 20th century. I mean the basic strategy of the, of, of the, of the American empire was really thought through by. And today people when you say Net Assessment, they think it's something to do with the Internet. It was the, basically take the net assessment. But it was a brilliant kind of, kind of internal think tank to the Benicon. And this guy was a great guy and absolutely a brilliant, brilliant strategist. I think one of the greatest strategists this country's ever had. But continue on, Jim.
- [33:19]
Jim Rickards
Yeah, I agree. So I met with Andy and one of his deputies. We're in a vault in the Pentagon, just the three of us and kind of, you know, my expertise, you know, is financial warfare and so forth. So we went through a lot of things and I, at one point I said to him, he was 90. I called him Mr. Marshall, I thought that was suitable. I said, Mr. Marshall, you're going to wake up one day and find that you have a forward deployed Navy, you're going to pull into a shipyard and ask for some services and they're going to ask you to pay in a currency that you don't print. And Andy was a great listener, didn't say a lot, but that was, that got a reaction out of me, goes, yeah, we need to look at that. In other words, I was talking about the role of the US dollar, so, and again, you can go back to the pound sterling and before that the Dutch Guilder, etc. Naval power, military power in general, naval power in particular, go hand in hand with, with a strong currency. I'm not talking about exchange rate valuations and talking about a currency that people, people have Trust in Now, this naval power shifts from time to time. You go back to the 16th century, it was the Portuguese and the Spanish. Portuguese went east, the Spanish went west in the 17th century, believe it or not, the Netherlands, the Dutch Navy was very powerful, defeated the Royal Navy in a number of battles. 18th century, the French, they helped us out in the American Revolution. 19th century, Royal Navy all the way through 20th century. Obviously, the US Navy, although let's give a shout out to the Japanese, they were the first to adapt to aircraft carriers. The British and the Germans were completely locked into battleships, and the Japanese started basically building very crude aircraft carriers. And the U.S. navy was not far behind. So the question for the 21st century is, what is it? Does the US get another 100 years of naval dominance, or do the Chinese come along and steal the crown, so to speak? My, my view is that the Chinese are not going to be able to do that. They, if you study them internally, they. But I'm not saying they're not a threat. I'm not. You never benefit from underestimating your, your enemy. They have enormous internal social problems, demographic problems, financial problems. Xi Jinping looks like he's been knocked down a peg, is actually subordinate to the, the military at this stage. And people talk about the Japanese, sorry. The Chinese now have three aircraft carrier battle groups, but they've got this ski ramp technology which they took from the Russians. To get the planes airborne, you kind of go up a lift. The bow of the ship is, or the flight deck rather, is curved up. The problem with that, it's not very efficient. They have to go up with half fuel loads and half loads of armaments in order not to crash into the sea once they take off. The US has mastered the catapult technology, so right there they have a problem number two.
- [36:02]
Steve Bannon
Well, battle tested. This is where I get to, by the way. We got Gruber's on the scene out, I think, with one of the combatants right now. We're going to go to Steve Gruber in a moment. Posovic's at Andrew Air Force Base. The President will be leaving from there and in fact, if he leaves from the lawn, we'll try to. I'm sure he's going to have a gaggle. So we're trying to get to President Trump. Throughout the day. We're going to be juggling between our strategists and geopoliticians and people know about the details of the Navy's operations and strike power with everything that's going on. First off, well, I want to get to the fighting, being able to fight the ship in a moment. Do you believe Rickards that to be a global power you need to have a naval. You need to have a naval presence that has the ability to strike globally.
- [36:53]
Jim Rickards
That's one way to do it. But let's give a little credit to Mackinder. Mackinder came up with this idea. He looked at the Eurasian landmass. He didn't count Europe as a separate continent, maybe a separate civilization, but Europe and Asia, by extension Africa and the Middle east and the Indian subcontinent. And he called it the world island. And he identified a place called the Heartland, which is kind of around Xi', An, China. Bendige on it was. It was the capital long before Beijing or Nanjing, Southern Siberia and again Central Asia. And he said he who controls the heartland controls the world island. And he who controls the world island controls the world. So there is another theory. Now the last guy to do it was Genghis Khan. And the descendants of Genghis Khan were the mobilizations.
- [37:38]
Steve Bannon
But the World War II was about World War II was a battle for the fight for that Eurasian landmass between the Imperial Japanese army and the Germans. This is why they hit from two different sides. The naval exercise. Cleo Pascal, just stick there because Cleopascal, I would argue, is the Alfred Thayer mahan of the 21st century. Her theory, the case is, yes, Mackinder is the heartland. The world island is what the 20th century wars were about. But the 21st century, and particularly for American hemispheric security pivots around the vast Pacific, which is, Captain Fennell tells me approximately 20 times the surface mass of the United States. It is vast. And the argument is that the strategic heartland of the United States is that the pivot of world history in the 21st century? We're getting all that today, plus we're going to see some good old fashioned Navy fighting power. We're going to talk about this concept of combat hardness and fighting the ship, what is meant historically. Take a short commercial break Real America's voice in War Room Navy 250 all day today here at Real America's Voice. Back in a moment. Foreign.
- [39:05]
Jack Posobec
Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor AMAC for standing with RAV. Welcome back to Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Patriot Mobile for standing with Rev.
- [39:36]
Steve Bannon
Okay, welcome back. AMAC Birchgold and Patriot Mobile. Three of our sponsors today, folks have really taken care of us, really appreciate it. And all great companies make sure their services and products you spend some time looking at and thinking about. Steve Gruber, always doing yeoman's duty. I tell you, Gruber, here's what I admire about you. I'm tossing you. I want you to tell us where I. But here's where I admire most about you. You're one of the biggest personalities in this business. You're the Rush Limbaugh of Michigan. Your people listen to you and watch you because of your insights. And yet you go do the hard work. Every time we have one of these things, you're always on the riser as an old school reporter. Where are you, sir, and what are you doing today?
- [40:24]
Steve Gruber
I would tell you, Steve, I'm right in the heart of it here. Main stage right behind me. We'll see the president here later. The USS Truman is right here next to me. An impressive aircraft here. But I have got to weigh in on a couple of things. First of all, this is kind of old hat to you, Steve. You're a Navy veteran. For me, I get these opportunities on occasion. A few years ago, I was on the USS Michigan. You were talking about those Ohio class submarines who were involved in the, that attack on Iran. I was on the USS Michigan. It was not involved in that. But it's one of those Ohio class submarines that's loaded with ballistic missiles. What a, what an education that was. What an education is here for me to see an F18 Hornet parked right here on the deck, not up on the flight deck, but right here for everybody to see. I've got all sorts. I've got an Osprey here behind me. Just remarkable for me to see. But I want to weigh in on something else you talk about. I love the conversation about Teddy Roosevelt. Nobody could overstate his job as Under Secretary of the Navy. 1897, 1898, 13 months he was in the job and basically without authorization. He knew the United States Navy needed to be bolstered. He knew we'd had to be a global power. And he did it without much permission. And he went and did it just before the Spanish American War. It was a remarkable thing. By the way, Teddy Roosevelt will celebrate his 167th birthday on the 27th of October this year. I know that, Steve, because it's my birthday. So I've had an affinity for Teddy Roosevelt for a long time. I think he did great things for American military. So there you go. Personal story.
- [41:52]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, Groover.
- [41:54]
Jim Rickards
Hang on.
- [41:54]
Steve Bannon
I'm coming right back to you. Captain Fennell. Let's talk about that Teddy Roosevelt. I think the first the first president that saw the Navy as a tool for basically the global expansion of the United States and the power of the United States as Under Secretary of the Navy is later his cousin fdr also, I think Secretary of the Navy, Under Secretary of the Navy. Talk about Teddy Roosevelt, the Great White Fleet, the importance of Spanish American War and the rise the power of the United States around the Navy.
- [42:25]
Captain Jim Fennell
Well, Steve, you know, we were at that time in the world development. We are in this point where there's been an industrial revolution in Europe and there's buying and selling and trading, and nations are expanding and colonialism is expanding by European nations around Africa and things of that nature, and they're expanding colonialism throughout Asia. I think what President Roosevelt, then Secretary Roosevelt saw was this need that the United States was, if we were going to survive and not be, you know, have these European nations come to look to carve us up, that we needed to be out on the world stage and we needed to be modern and have a modern fleet that could operate globally to ensure our access to the markets and to be able to buy and sell and trade. It really hasn't changed in the last 150 years or 125 years since then, which is this faith and belief in free access to Marcus, the freedom of navigation. As Jim Rickard said, you know, we got these choke points. The earth is 70% water. The most of it's in the Pacific, 50% of that. And we need to be able to buy and sell and trade and move goods and services. And at that time, we didn't have the capacity to ensure our ability to do that without being subject to the predations of other European capitals and their larger navies. And so I think that turning point in the Spanish American war was for us, a turning point to say, hey, we are now a global player. We are on this global stage. And it set in motion many, many things. It was the age of going from sailing ships, wooden men and wooden ships and iron men, to iron ships and iron men was kind of the way to phrase it. And so we became the modern Navy in that era, and we kept progressing. And so we incorporated technology, research and development, things of that nature that weren't just into the shipbuilding, weren't just into recruiting, but this idea that we had to have naval armaments and naval gunnery and that we had to have proficiency and science behind those kinds of technologies. It was also during the period of the birth of the undersea, the submarine fleet and the submarine force. So lots of new things were coming into The Navy at the turn of the. At the beginning of the 20th century. And it was all really set in motion because of, as Steve Gruber said, of the one guy who went out on his own and knew what needed to be done and pushed hard for it. And that also set the precedent, as we talked about throughout the next 125 years, where we saw other periods in our history where people stood up and said, okay, I'm going to lead in this area. We need to get back to leading in maritime and naval power.
- [45:09]
Steve Bannon
And as Gruber said, when Teddy Roosevelt was in the Department of Navy, he didn't. He was going to beg forgiveness. He wasn't going to ask permission. He just did it. Cleo, I want to go to you because of those giants and thinking about the Spanish American War, what they understood is that manifest destiny, the destiny of the United States, did not end at the shoreline of California. It was not simply the settlers and the pioneers and all these heroic giants that we stand on the shoulders of that really went across the Mississippi, out west into this really hostile environment to build a civilization that it projected farther. They're the first ones that understood the importance and the importance of the Pacific to the United States, and that essentially our destiny would ultimately be tied to being a Pacific power. Walk us through that, ma'.
- [45:56]
Captain Jim Fennell
Am.
- [45:57]
Cleo Pascal
Yeah. So this. This goes back to very early on in US History. The Navy actually sent out an extra exploring expedition in the Pacific from about 1838-42. They didn't have the money for the whole thing. The President have the money for the whole thing. So he sent it out hoping that it would be so popular that Congress would find the money to bring it back, which. Which was the case. Which proved to be the case. But at that point, the Pacific was very much of a. Of a European lake, and the US Felt threatened by it. Hawaii was sacked by the French in the. In the late 18th 40s, and the US representative there at the time sent a message back then, and then again later in the 70s, saying, if a hostile power controls Hawaii, we're not going to be safe and we're not going to be able to trade. And that was really what set up the Spanish American war. Part in the Pacific, which was. President McKinley later said that the reason that they took the Philippines and took Guam was because there was no understanding that if the dons, as he called the Spanish, controlled the Philippines, then the US mainland wasn't safe. And so that year, 1898, was a very important year for the US saying, we don't want any hostile powers controlling the Pacific because not only did the US take the Philippines and Guam, but that was also when Hawaii joined, joined the U.S. or was annexed to the, to the U.S. giving that Central point in the Pacific from which you could then refuel and, and be able to move forward.
- [47:28]
Steve Bannon
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I want to make very people understand this. In 1898, a geostrategic decision was made that no hostile power will ever control the Pacific. No hostile power ever control the Pacific. We fought the half of the Second World War. At least a third of the Second World War was fought to make sure that we drove the Imperial Japanese Navy out of the Pacific. And Today in the 21st century, our central threat as a great power, maybe not the threat here and the threat of the deep state and all these other threats that we're trying to stare down or break apart, but the existential threat as a great power struggle ain't Russia in the Eurasian landmass. It is the challenge of the rise of the Chinese Communist Party in its navy to basically have a hostile power take over the Pacific. That's essentially in a nutshell where we stand today given our history of over what, 127, 130 years when we made this decision as a country.
- [48:37]
Cleo Pascal
Absolutely. I mean, this is why I think Mackinder was never really relevant for the US The Central Pacific was always the US geographical pivot of history. If a hostile foreign power controlled it, the US wasn't safe. @ the time that this was clear, it was the Spanish and the British and the French. Then it became the Japanese, then it was the Soviets and now it's the Chinese. The geography doesn't change. And that's why parts of the United States like the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, which are an eight hour flight west of Hawaii, but only a four hour flight south east of Tokyo, for example, or from Taiwan are Americans on American soil. That is a strategic lesson encoded in history and given to future Americans to remember we are a Pacific power. The US is a Pacific power without. And that was actually what Teddy Roosevelt said when he sent the Great White Fleet through is one of the reasons he did it was to remind Americans and everybody else that the US was as much of a Pacific power as an Atlantic power. So this is. And McKinley was also very, very clear about this. This was widely known from early on and it became part of also, for example, the purchase of Alaska in 1867 was an attempt to do a pincher move on British Columbia, what was then a British colony, to control the entire west coast so that there couldn't be any infiltration onto the continent from other Pacific powers. So don't forget Alaska when you're talking about the Pacific or the ghost of Billy Mitchell will come and haunt you in your sleep.
- [50:17]
Steve Bannon
Yeah, we're going to get all that Billy Mitchell about new technology. Court martialed Billy Mitchell for trying to show naval air power. Alaska. Also the Panama Canal right now, folks, we've allowed the Caribbean to become a lake of the Chinese, of the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party. That's all going to be swept out. President Trump's hemispheric defense from Greenland in the Arctic all the way to the Panama Canal and then down to Latin America. Of course, we have an amphibious ready group as we speak today with 4,000 fleet marines and sailors off the coast of Venezuela looking at a potential strike to take over the seaports, the air bases and logistics nodes potentially, although we're not at war with a nation or won't be a war with nation, the Trump administration has already told, already told Congress we are already at war, a kinetic war against the drug cartels. Okay, we're gonna get into all of it. Got Cleo Pascal, we got Captain Fanelli, we got Steve Gruber on the Truman. We're going to go back to Gruber. Jim Rickards is with us for Geopolitics. We're going to be joined by the great filmmaker Michael Pack, his amazing film on Admiral Rickover, one of the greatest giants of the 20th century, underappreciated and under and misunderstood. Short commercial break. We're going to come back 11 o'. Clock also, I think Jack Bock's at Andrews Air Force Base. The president is going to get ready to leave, Monica. Ambassador Crowley, I think is going to take the stage, give a speech with a couple of Navy Seals. There's a lot going on today in Navy 250. Back in a moment.
- [52:03]
Jack Posobec
We'll be right back with more Navy 250 sea power and freedom. We want to thank our sponsor Birch Gold Group for standing with Rav.
- [52:18]
Steve Bannon
This is an iHeart podcast.