THE WAR ROOM WITH STEPHEN K. BANNON, NOVEMBER 11TH, 2025 (EP.#4917)

Summary

Real America’s Voice – The War Room with Stephen K. Bannon

Episode #4917 – November 11, 2025
A special Veterans Day episode featuring Patrick K. O’Donnell, Taj Gill, Mo Bannon, and Scott Bessant

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Episode Overview

This Veterans Day broadcast of The War Room centers on the meaning of Veterans Day, America’s military legacy, the challenges facing current and former service members, and urgent concerns about the nation’s economic and educational direction. Host Stephen K. Bannon is joined by combat historian Patrick K. O’Donnell, former Navy SEAL and veteran entrepreneur Taj Gill, West Point alum Mo Bannon, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant. The episode strongly underscores themes of remembrance, honoring service, institutional decline and reform, and the fight to reclaim American economic and social sovereignty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Veterans Day: Remembrance and Division of Meaning

[08:35–10:00]

• Bannon marks the broadcast as coinciding with Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, which originated to commemorate the end of World War I. He discusses its shift in focus from honoring the war’s end to recognizing all veterans, living and dead.
• Bannon distinguishes between Memorial Day (for the honored dead) and Veterans Day (for the living), elaborating on the unique endurance and strength of America’s military institutions.

Quote:
"Veterans Day is for we the living. ... Our Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, all 250 years old—how unique that is in human history to have institutions that are basically more powerful, more focused, a greater global presence after a quarter of a millennia. That happens very, very rarely." – Stephen K. Bannon (11:00)

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2. The Legacy of Service & Endurance of Military Institutions

[13:07–15:40]

• Patrick K. O’Donnell honors his fellow Marines from Fallujah and draws parallels with the valor of earlier generations, underlining the continuity of character in American servicemen and -women across eras.
• Bannon and O’Donnell recount stories of extraordinary sacrifice, referencing WWII's brutal battles and the modern-day Marines’ resilience and adaptability even amidst societal shifts and anti-masculinity sentiment.

Notable Moment:

• Discussion of Michael Pack’s film screenings and how even in staunchly progressive or "woke" environments, young men still gravitate toward stories of military valor and toughness.

Quote:
"They have had everything pressed against them from the woke culture to the absolute hatred of masculinity – and they've come through." – Stephen K. Bannon (15:30)

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3. The Cost of Service: Veteran Health, PTSD, and Healing

[19:07–25:58]

• Navy SEAL veteran Taj Gill shares his personal battles with brain injuries, PTSD, and the limits of VA-provided treatments. He advocates alternative therapies and underscores the struggles veterans face reintegrating, including homelessness and entrepreneurship.
• Gill discusses hyperbaric oxygen therapy and ayahuasca, noting significant improvement in his mental health and spiritual well-being.

Quote:
"Most veterans don’t have access to any of this stuff, and they don’t even know about it. The VA just gives them pills on top of pills on top of pills, and then guys go kill themselves." – Taj Gill (24:13)

Memorable Exchange:
Bannon (lightly) pushes back on psychedelic treatments but expresses openness to “healing” modalities outside the VA system, commending entrepreneurial initiatives and peer support networks like Warrior Rising.

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4. Military Tradition & American Identity: The West Point Experience

[26:20–36:42]

• Mo Bannon calls in from West Point, reflecting on its strategic historical significance and the unique role it played in forging the Continental Army.
• Discussion covers the “sacred ground” of West Point, the enduring rigors of the academy, and the continued volunteerism and quality of today’s cadets, even in peacetime.

Mo Bannon on Cadet Quality:
"We are currently not in a time of war, and these cadets are still coming to learn and train ... it’s truly amazing to see." (35:17)

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5. Economic Policy and Reshoring American Manufacturing

[37:40–44:29]

• Scott Bessant (Treasury Secretary) joins to defend Trump administration policy on tariffs, fiscal discipline, and international bailouts. He argues tariffs lower inflation, replenish government revenue, and will ultimately result in jobs “reshored” for Americans.
• Bessant fields tough questions about a $20B bailout for Argentina, asserting such deals strengthen American interests without direct military intervention.

Quote:
"By stabilizing the economy there and making a profit, then that's a very good deal for the American people. ... I would rather use peace through economic strength than have to be shooting at narco boats coming offshore." – Scott Bessant (39:00)

• Bannon connects these economic reforms to wider strategic competition with China and globalization’s “religion,” which in his view decimated America’s industrial core.

Bannon’s Economic Rant:
"These capitalists, the private equity and hedge funds ... worked in unison with a murderous dictatorship ... gutted, particularly, the industrial heartland of this country, the arsenal of democracy." (41:20)

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6. Education, Foreign Students, and the China Dilemma

[48:35–54:30]

• Bannon launches into a polemic against the prevalence of foreign (esp. Chinese) students in US universities, arguing this crowds out American students and poses national security concerns—particularly with respect to artificial intelligence and advanced technology.

Quote:
"Why would we ever in a billion years give them access to anything? ... We’ve got to now shut it down or start to shame people ... who are essentially agents of influence for the Chinese Communist Party." – Stephen K. Bannon (50:15)

• Allusions to elite interests, woke university environments, and the potential collapse of a chunk of America’s higher-ed system if reliant on foreign enrollment.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

| Speaker | Quote | Timestamp | |-------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Stephen K. Bannon | "This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people." | 08:35 | | Patrick K. O’Donnell | "A generation of Americans with the Marine Corps ... it just blew me away ... many guys had multiple Purple Hearts but would consistently leave the aid station to come back with their brothers." | 13:38 | | Taj Gill | "For me, it was the ayahuasca. It just brought everything out and let me deal with all my problems ... since then, I've emotionally and spiritually healed." | 23:13 | | Mo Bannon | "It’s the cream of the crop that are coming here ... getting to talk to them, it’s truly amazing to see." | 35:17 | | Scott Bessant | "By stabilizing the economy there and making a profit, then that’s a very good deal for the American people." | 39:00 | | Stephen K. Bannon | "We've got to now shut it down or start to shame people like David Sacks and like Jensen Huang, who are essentially agents of influence for the Chinese Communist Party..." | 50:15 |

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Additional Memorable Moments

• The “Last 600 Meters” Film: Referenced as a pivotal depiction of modern combat and a powerful recruiter for military-minded youth (15:00).
• Pressure on Today’s Youth: Bannon’s commentary on the “pressure cooker” faced by “based” young American males amidst cultural, economic, and technological change (32:36, 34:00).
• Supply-Side and Tariff Policy: Bannon’s explanation of the Trump economic platform as a high-stakes “gamble” requiring detailed scrutiny and public accountability (44:00).
• West Point “Sacred Ground”: Mo Bannon’s live update from West Point and discussion of tradition, discipline, and historic transformation (26:43, 35:17).
• Sharp Critique of Academia: Bannon derides “woke” universities and proposes drastic enrollment reforms in higher ed (48:35–54:30).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Veterans Day context and meaning: 08:35–11:00
• Combat stories and generational valor with Patrick O’Donnell: 13:07–15:40
• Taj Gill on PTSD, entrepreneurship, and healing: 19:07–25:58
• West Point, tradition, and “the making of an army”: 26:20–36:42
• Economic policy and international finance discussion with Scott Bessant: 37:40–44:29
• Foreign students, AI threat, and university reform: 48:35–54:30

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Conclusion

This Veteran’s Day edition of The War Room leans heavily into themes of sacrifice, institutional strength, and national renewal. With a mix of personal testimony, economic prescription, and cultural critique, Bannon and guests weave a narrative of American resilience but also of urgency—warning that veterans, workers, and citizens alike remain threatened by bureaucratic neglect, woke ideology, and globalist economics. The episode champions reclaiming national sovereignty, fortifying military traditions, and resurrecting American manufacturing and education systems to serve the interests of citizens above all.

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Transcript

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Historical Narrator]

Have passed and once again in silence, the nation observes the Day of Remembrance. The Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, and his under secretary, Mr. Jeffrey Lloyd, receive their Majesties on their arrival at the Clive Steps and the Cenotaph is the central focus of the Empire's remembrance. Although a new king comes out to face the simple monument, the scene is the same as it always has been, but it has lost nothing in impressiveness with the passing of time. Once again, the King's act of homage is the symbol of the homage of his people. The Music fades away, away. And remembrance is united in the common silence around the common memorial. But this year it isn't quite the same. The silence is marred by an incident. A man breaks through the guard of honor just on the left of the Cenotaph, and rushes towards the King. The police seize him and drag him away. We show this brief scene again so that you can see the incident more clearly, just on the left of the Cenotaph. And while the nation remembers the million dead, it is well too that we should not forget those living. The men who, 20 years after, bear the scars of Europe's tragic mistakes. For them, there can be no compensation for the toll on their health and streng. A few moments after the silence, His Majesty the King walks along White hall to lay a second wreath at the foot of the memorial to Earl Haig, which was unveiled the day before. And then, for the 19th time, the great pilgrimage begins.

[Historical Commentator]

The mixed innovations in the world, the high levels of vision and achievement upon which the gain works of democracy and life with fallen world. Although the stimulating memories of that happy time of triumph offer ever more than embarrassed us by the shameful fact that wins victory over the one being commemored. Teachers David spirit unwedding psychopathies by whom incomparable soldiers we turned our backs on our associates refused to bear any responsible part in the administration of peace our term and permanent establishment in reserves to war. One that through parallel for life treasured and withdrew into a sudden and selfish isolation, which is deeply ignoble for a manifest cowardly and disharmony. It must always be a source of deep mortification to us, and we shall inevitably be forced by the moral obligations of freedom and honor to retrieve that fatal error and assume once more the role of courage, self respect and helpfulness, which every free American must wish to believe to be the true part, our true part in the affairs of the world. That we should thus have done a great wrong to civilization and one of the most critical turning points in the history of mankind, and to want to be deplored before the re anxious yet forward has made the exceeding need for such services as we might render more and more manifest and more and more pressing, as demoralizing circumstances which we might have controlled have gone from bad to worse. Until now, as if the furniture sought a terrific climax. God can get a between them have made way to paper to paper the treaty of their side. And the whole field of international relationships is in perilous confusion. The affairs of the world can be set straight only by the firmness and most determined exhibition of the will to live and make the life the right prevail couple in the present situation of affairs in the world affords us an opportunity to achieve and to render mankind the inevitable service of proving that there is at least one great and powerful mission which can put aside programs of passive interest and devoted death that sea and the servant the higher science ideas of 50 and the consistent theme resultant standards of conscience and of right. The only way in which we can show our true appreciation of the significant biology of faith is by resolving to pushed away.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going medieval on these people's not got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people, the people have had a belly full of it. I know you don't like hearing that. I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen. And where do people like that go to share the big lie?

[Scott Bessant]

MAGA MEDIA I wish in my soul.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I wish that any of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Ban. It's Tuesday the 11th of November in the year of our Lord 2025, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The guns went silent. That was to bring down the curtain on what they called the Great War, the catastrophe that basically kicked off what we call the short 20th century, really from August, let's say July, August of 1914, until, I don't know, November, December of 1989. Follow the Berlin Wall. Today's Veterans Day. It was called Veterans Day. It was shifted to Veterans Day, I think, in 1954. General Eisenhower, because to call it Armistice Day was a little, I don't know, a little uncomfortable since that armistice essentially laid the foundation for even a greater war, greater catastrophe for humanity. That was World War II. And so they shifted it to Veterans Day here in the War Room. As you know, we bifurcate Memorial Day, which is for our honored dead and Veterans Day is for we the living. The President Day, though, is going about 10:30. He will go to Arlington National Cemetery. There will be a wreath laying. We will cover that. Obviously, all live. We're going throughout the day. Talk about veterans, obviously, but the institutions that they are veterans of, these our army, our Navy and our marine Corps, all 250 years old. And how unique that is in human history to have institutions that are basically more powerful, more focused, a greater global presence after a quarter of a millennia. That happens very, very, very rarely. And there's something to how does that happen? How do these institutions which have problems? I mean, the Navy's got a huge shipb I think a ship handling problem, just basic seamanship. Army's got tons of problems, Marine Corps, but all of them work through those problems and can deliver when you need it. As we said last night in the last 600 meters, and by the way, it was so extraordinary to see that play on national TV and all the great comments the War Room Posse had that watched it can, you know, take them off the chain. The fighting men and women of our armed services have never let us down. Where you've had problems is political interference. As they said the other night when we had the premiere of last six or the screening of the last 600 meters here, one of the Marines said, you just take the Marines off the chain and they will deliver a victory. Right now, people may not like the way that victory comes about, but when you're in war fighting, it's only about victory, okay? It's about victory. I've got Taj Gill is riding shotgun with me. Patrick K. O' Donnell Patrick, you've done so much about the First World, really today, for so long, was Armistice Day. That's why the British, they said right there, 1 million dead in the United Kingdom. That's why Great Britain never really recovered from World War I. World War II was essentially the knockout blow for the empire. And I think Churchill knew that. That's why he was so adamant and anti Nazi and anti Hitler in those years in the wilderness in the 1920s and 1930s, because he realized any kind of concentration of power on the European continent would put the EMP at great risk. Your thoughts today, sir? Veterans Day. PATRICK K. O' Donnell, our greatest in his generation, the greatest combat historian. Sir.

[Patrick K. O'Donnell]

Steve it's an honor and a pleasure to be with you today. I think about the men, the Marines that I was with in Fallujah and every Veterans Day and last night I had the privilege to be with them on, on the Marine Corps birthday. We, we celebrated last night. The Marine Corps bir just celebrated being alive after Fallujah and that charnel house of, you know, some of the toughest urban combat since World War II, where you had bunkered enemies like the Japanese that would fight to the death. And, you know, I was with some of the greatest Americans I've ever, ever met. And a Generation of Americans with the Marine Corps in particular. I was a Lima Company 3 1. I was with Recon before that and I just, I saw a generation that, it just blew me away that, you know, one house after another. The platoon went from 60 men down to 20 men standing. Many guys had multiple purple hearts but would consistently leave the aid station to come back with their brothers.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

No, this is, you know, last night, you know, I had Michael Pack co host it and I told the story when Michael Pack went and screened the film for the Force Recon Marines of Peleliu and Tarawa. These two amphibious landings were absolute slaughterpins. And you could argue the Force Recon of the Marines is, you know, the top 1%. It's the greatest of the greatest generation. And when they saw the film, their admiration for the courage and valor and tenacity of the young Marines was overwhelming. They said they couldn't do that in the Force Recon. The landings in Tarawa and Peleliu, they clear cut everything in front of them. They were told, hey, these are 17, 18, 19, 20 year old marines. Hey, you're going to hit that beach and everything in front of you is dead. You're not going to back up an inch. You just go until you can't go any farther. They said, hey, going, not kicking in these doors. And you got women running around jobs and you got little kids running around, could have IEDs. They said the pressure on these kids is unbelievable. That's why I keep saying in this country today, particularly this young male generation that's so based, you can't say enough about them. They have had everything pressed against them from the woke culture to the absolute hatred of masculinity and they've come through. Michael Pack told me a story last night I had not heard. Michael said that in the last couple of years he took the film to a private school in New York City, one of the best private schools in New York City. But they're all totally woke. And as he screened the film afterwards, the teachers were all over him. The war and everything, all the politics of the war and blah blah, blah. But at the end of it, the young boys that have been in this environment and the demascul, the anti patriarch of being ripped apart by these viper terrorist teachers every day in one of the most woke schools in New York City all came up to. They took a couple of marines with them and they wanted to find out how to be marines. That's why I say the last 600 meters, as bloody as it is, as horrible as is is the one of the best recruiting films I've ever seen. Young men in the United States of America will watch that film and say, hey, I want to be part of that. That's why after 250 years, our army, our Navy, our Marine Corps, our institutions unparalleled. Short commercial break Veterans Day in the.

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[Taj Gill]

Lounge access is subject to change.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Historical Commentator]

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

Okay? Welcome back. Tage Gill, you're joining us. Your thoughts on Veterans Day, brother?

[Taj Gill]

I'm just happy to be here, Steve. I'm happy to support the War Room, and I'm happy to be part of this Veterans Day celebration. As you know, I was a veteran. I was in the Navy for 10 years in the SEAL teams, and then I was a contractor for about nine years. So I was in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq from 01 to 2014. And I am very happy to support and celebrate veterans and for all those who served in every branch of service, living and dead, and also the families of veterans who sacrificed so much when the veterans went off to war. The families, I don't think they get thanked enough for. For the sacrifices they've made for being home alone and not knowing that their spouses are going to come home from these wars. So I'm just happy to be here and happy to. Happy to celebrate this. And of course, on the coffee, we're having a Veterans Day sale. But that's not the reason I'm here. I just wanted to celebrate veterans and celebrate the.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I don't know, man. We have an issue with veterans being homeless. I want to. I promote all these veterans companies. I think it's great.

[Taj Gill]

We have a huge.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

I think it's great that you vets come back and become entrepreneurs. You've been part of large organizations which do support entrepreneurial activity in combat, right? That's kind of the whole mission is you got to think on your own and kind of, you know, ride to the sound of the guns and get stuff done. But there are large bureaucratic organizations, as you know better than anybody, that's the reason we got such crappy coffee in the Navy is just because of the bureaucracy, because of the system. I couldn't be prouder of veterans coming out and saying, hey, I've worked inside the system. I worked to defend my country in whatever role it was, right? I've worked to defend my country, and now it's time to do something different. So I think it's, particularly with the homeless issues and the PTSD and all that, I think it's great. And I think that's how we honor veterans for their service, also for the institutions they served, which is the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, all of it. And remember, for the longest time, the Air Force was part of the Army. The Army Air Corps. Taj Gill, thoughts?

[Taj Gill]

I agree with you 100%, Steve. Last week I was out at Salt Lake City. I was part of a veterans group called Warrior Rising, and it's basically like a shark tank for veterans. I went through their program a few years ago, but they invited me out to pitch Shields in Salt Lake City. I did that last Friday. But we need more groups like this that support veteran entrepreneurs. And not only that, but, like, you're saying the PTSD stuff, guys are still killing themselves in record numbers, and there's not enough help out there. And the. The veterans. The. The va, The Veterans Administration, you know, they're still throwing these antidepressants and all this stuff at guys. And, you know, I did hyperbaric oxygen therapy that helped with my. I had a lot of brain injuries. That helped with that a lot. Like, it was, like, night and day difference. And then for the PTSD stuff, I didn't even know I had that. I. And then somebody told me how I used to be really angry, and I went down to South America and I drank this stuff called ayahuasca. It's a psychedelic medicine from Peru, and it changed my life. Like, it completely changed my life. But you can never get that.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Okay. I don't know.

[Taj Gill]

You can never. You can never get that in the United States, that it's illegal. But, you know, through these.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Yeah.

[Taj Gill]

Hyperbaric oxygen, psychedelic treatments, guys are. Guys are healing.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We're gonna get you in the mics. We're gonna get you on Mike Cernovich's Twitter feed about the. Was it ayahuasca?

[Taj Gill]

Ayahuasca.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We're not pitching ayahuasca.

[Taj Gill]

That was eight years ago, and I've been.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

He had a vision. He wanted to get in the coffee business while he's down there. Right? That's right. Hang on for a second. Hang on for a second. You had P.T. they finally diagnosed you with bad PTSD, right?

[Taj Gill]

Right. Yeah.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Okay.

[Taj Gill]

I thought back. Back in the day. I remember talking to one of my SEAL team buddies about it, and I was like, oh, that stuff. You know, only conventional forces guys get that, and blah, blah, blah. You know, we used to think we're the tough guys, the special operators. And he's like, no, we all get it. And then I realized I was getting angry all the time, and I didn't know why. And I. I went out and seeked a solution, and I found it. And for me, it was the ayahuasca. It just brought everything out and let me deal with all my problems, and I dumped it and moved forward. And since then, I've emotionally and spiritually healed. I don't know, about 100%, but a lot. And I feel great now. I'm aligned with God, I'm married with kids, and January 1st will be eight years. No drinking. And then, you know, the coffee Business. And just all parts of my life are getting better by the day. And we need. But most veterans don't have access to any of this stuff, and they don't even know about it. The VA just gives them pills on top of pills on top of pills, and then guys go kill themselves.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Yeah, you can't. You can't solve it. You can't solve. With the antidepressants. We see that all over. Taj, just hang on for a second and just take. Was the brain injury came from concussions we saw in the last 600 meters. Jan Benner was with us last night. That scene when the Abrams tank and these guys have trained, they've just never trained. Live fire with the Abrams tank right next to. Abrams tank lets off its main gun. These guys are, like, rattled. The fillings in their teeth come out, and they're just standing next to it. Did you get it from concussion?

[Taj Gill]

Yeah, from breaching. I was a breacher. So we blown doors and blown holes in walls. And then they also say it comes from firing heavy weapons. All the times. I did for a little while, I did ground mobility in the SEAL team, so we did a lot of heavy weapons, you know, the.50 caliber machine guns, mortars, stuff like that. And then also parachuting. I had a hard landing where I got knocked unconscious on the landing. Skydiving accident. And, you know, all these things, they just add up. They're cumulative. So over the years, it gets worse and worse. And I went. I went through. They're actually through. Debbie Lee's program, America's mighty warriors, another 501c3. We did a spec scan of my brain. And my brain. It measures the areas in your brain that have blood flow. And I had a lot of areas in my brain that weren't getting blood flow at that time. And I did about 80 dives in a hyperbaric chamber over six weeks, just knocking them out. Two a day, Monday through Friday. And at the end of that, it restored. It was crazy, the amount of blood flow restored, but I could sleep better, I could think better. It actually fixed my eyesight and got rid of the tinnitus, the ringing in my ears. Like it was life changing for me. It was amazing.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Debbie Lee is fantastic. What she's built in memory of her son, another great warrior who died killed in action. Mo Bannon. Mo, you're up at the academy. I know you're on the board. Big weekend you guys had up there. Where are you? Can you geolocate and let the audience know where you are?

[Mo Bannon]

Right in Front of Washington hall, the mess hall and the two of the barracks. Actually you can see more of the barracks behind me. But those are two of the main barracks, Eisenhower Barracks and MacArthur Barracks. And then my barracks where I lived were actually over behind me.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So right in back. You just. So the audience understands it, that's the famous plains of West Point. Correct. You only do passing reviews there. Civilians are not allowed to step on it. And quite frankly it's kept pristine unless you're actually doing a formal military drill.

[Mo Bannon]

Correct. You do parades on it. You do parades before football games. Graduation week. Since I was more of a, I'm gonna say athlete student, not student athlete. But I graduated. I have my diploma from West Point, so that's what matters. But I paraded I think three times in my cadet career. R Day, A day and graduation parade. However, we were up here for my 15 year reunion this weekend and the grads were actually that's the one time that we got to step onto the plane after graduation is out here to watch the pass in review. And I believe that some of the current cadets were heckled by my classmates.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We got those great photos of you in your cadet uniform after the. On the plane or right off the plane. For the, for folks at home. The reason that is sacred ground. That is also where in fact the statues there to the Polish officers who came over and helped form the Continental essentially a militia into an army. It had been formed army. The reason West Point is strategic. It's above the Hudson. You've got this stunning view and they do a chain across there to block the British from going either up or down. Either take New York City or try to cut the country in two to cut New England off. Because the Hudson Valley and the Hudson river are always strategic asset that was being fought over. But it's on that plane, on that field right there where the Continental army was taken from a bunch of ragtag colonists to almost like a militia into an army with drill, drill and constant drill and of course the memoirs of all the leaders of the Civil War and everything. They would come and their beast barracks at that time would be right on that plane in commemoration of how they hammered, how they hammered an army together. Mo just hang out there. I know it's a little chilly, but hey, you're, you're, you're, you're army, so you're tough. We're going to go out with the caissons, go marching along. You're in the war room today. It's Veterans Day. The President United States, the commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, if we stay on schedule, will momentarily leave for Arlington National Cemetery. There'll be a wreath laying today by the President at Arlington. Going to cover it all. We've got a lot to go through and actually some current news. The Secretary of Treasury gave a great interview on Morning Joe where they kind of ganged up on him. But Scott Besson, you know you can go four or five on one at Morning Joe and he can bench press them all. Also got some clips last night from the President's interview with Laura Ingram, including my favorite topic, 600,000 foreign nationals here in American universities, including 350,000 Chinese. Big topic here in the war room. We'll break it all down. Veterans Day in the war room. Stick around. We'll be back after a short commercial break.

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band. We're gonna get to, we're gonna interview with Scott Besson some of the economic issues that are pressing upon us. Mo, you're on the board up there. Now talk to me about these young cadets. The thing I was impressed about the generation that was with you when I went up there and spent a lot of time when you were at West Point was the fact that all of you volunteered as tasia. All you guys volunteered during a war. You knew that you guys were going to the Middle east as failed a policy that was set aside. All these kids knew they were going. And in fact the force recon of World War II, they will tell you, you know, most of those guys are draftees. There were some volunteers, don't get me wrong, but a lot of them were draftees. And that's the other thing that the people were very impressed at, that all of these young men and women had volunteered in a time of war to actually go to a place where you'd be trained and then go into, really into the teeth of the war, which is one of the reasons I've always admired your generation of being people that stepped up. And so people that smack talk them, I don't think have had the opportunity to see these young men and women in action. And I can tell you right now, the young men in this current generation are as based as possible. And if that's what we have to depend on going forward in the United States, we're going to be just fine. We're going to be just fine. I can see the makings of a greatest generation right there. These kids have had culturally, I'm not talking about economically, but the pressure on them economically will be enormous. It's enormous right now. The decisions they're going to have to make with things like the singularity. You just had people announcing last week how they're going next step on genetic engineering. You understand artificial intelligence is out of control, starting to show up in the jobs reports. Now, all that pressure on this current generation. But as they've been under pressure with the propaganda in these schools, I don't care if it's a private school or a public school unless you're home schooled or maybe a handful of Christian and Catholic schools. And I'm saying a handful, you're getting propaganda from these teachers who are nothing more than terrorists who try to form these kids into being these radicals, beta male radicals. And they're not having. And they fought this one kind of on their own. So that's what's so impressive about them. Mo, what about the current? You know, West Point's gone through some issues with woke, et cetera. But the cadets. I'm always impressed with the cadets. What can you tell? You spent the weekend up there with cadets. What can you tell us about them?

[Mo Bannon]

I'm extremely impressed. I know. Like you said, when my class entered West Point, we knew that most likely we entered during a time of war, that most likely we were going to deploy shortly after we graduated. We are currently not in a time of war, and these cadets are still coming to learn and train and get ready for. God forbid we get involved in another war and it's not going to be a war like we were in in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they're learning many great things. You know, there's new majors from when I was here. There's 36 majors now. I believe there were less than 20 when I was a cadet. So it's the cream of the crop that are coming here. And just seeing that the cadets go across post and getting to talk to them, it's truly amazing to see. I know. In a wind tunnel.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Now, does everybody still have to either major or minor in engineering?

[Mo Bannon]

Correct?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Either. You have to major in engineering. You have to have a minor in engineering.

[Mo Bannon]

You do. So you have to take an engineering track. If you aren't an engineering major. So you have plenty of majors to include engineering. But you see a lot of. No matter what, you have to take an engineering track. So you will take engineering classes.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Yeah. No, that makes it tough. Hang on there. We're gonna get some other shots from the historic sacred soil of the United States. Part of it. President Trump's gonna be at Arlington National Cemetery. That's former General Lee's and his wife Mary Custis Lee. Their home that was turned into a federal cemetery in the middle of World War II. Excuse me. The Civil War. And of course the plains of. The sacred plains of West Point, which is where the Continental army came together and actually learned how to be an army. Can I play? We'll take a break. Mo, you can warm up and maybe give us another shot of the. Of trophy point. I got Patrick K. O', Donla, Tej Gill with me. Can I play the. Because we're going to get a little jammed here for time. I can tell with the President getting ready to leave on a motorcade to go to Tarlington National Cemetery. Can we play Scott Besance? Well, let's Play his interview this morning with the folks over at Morning Joe.

[Scott Bessant]

I think that the tariffs help consumers because. Because we are able to. If you go back and look, we have the. Brought down the budget deficit. And if you. MIT came out with a study that said that 42% of the great inflation was caused by the big deficit spending. So as you bring down deficit spending, inflation will come down. And the tariffs right now, we take in substantial tariff income over time. That will rebalance as the factories move to the US and that will become the corporate income or wage income. And by bringing down the budget deficit, we are bringing down inflation.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Amid this discussion of costs and prices and affordability, how does a $20 billion bailout of Argentina help Americans? You're the president's point person on that. Can you explain to those here who are feeling the pinch, including America's farmers, why the United States is helping out Argentina?

[Scott Bessant]

Well, can you. Do you know what a swap line is?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

It's currency swap.

[Scott Bessant]

Yes, yes, but what, what is that?

[Taj Gill]

That's.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You're the treasury Secretary.

[Scott Bessant]

Yes, but why would you call it a bailout? That is how in most bailouts, you don't make money. The US Government made money. We used our financial. We used our financial balance sheet to stabilize the government. One of our great allies in Latin America during an election, the president there won in a landslide. The government's going to make money. And I would rather use peace through economic strength than have to be shooting at narco boats coming offshore. If the government collapsed, we have a generational opportunity in Latin America to create allies. We just saw an election in Bolivia where we probably going to see an election in Colombia. We've seen them in Ecuador. We're going to see them in Chile. So by stabilizing the economy there and making a profit, then that's a very good deal for the American people. And there's a lot we could have been doing for American farmers. But Democrats closed the government.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So. Morning Joe. Here's the thing. The economy is a. The Trump administration, Scott Bessant, have a very definitive plan about how they've gone about and tried to not just jumpstart the economy, but really do a major and fundamental restructuring of the American economy. In fact, part of this and a big part of this is in front of the Supreme Court now even questioning does the president himself have the ability under emergency powers to do this? He is trying to, you can say rebalance. I say just reorganize the commercial relationships of the world based upon manufacturing. The theory of the case of the Globalists for the last 30, 40 years is just wrong. It's dead wrong. And it has weakened this country and as importantly, weakened the citizens in this country. And this is what we were going to go to, the religion of globalization, and we were going to ship all the manufacturing out of the United States that was too low value added, and we were going to ship it out of the United States. That's the excuse they used. What they wanted to do was to get to countries with lower wage costs, no social safety net and no environmental concerns, so it could turn China into a dumping ground and poison the entire environment of the world. These capitalists, the private equity and hedge funds and Wall street guys, that worked in unison with a murderous dictatorship, let's exactly say what it is that shipped all they gutted, particularly starting up in the industrial heartland of this country, I might add, the arsenal of democracy that won not simply the First World War, but then came back and won the Second World War and, oh, to top it off, won the Cold War. Yep, a trifecta, that arsenal of democracy. Here's the thanks you got. They gutted it. They gutted it in front of your eyes. And everybody stood around and kind of had all this happy talk and all this highfalutin talk. Trump, for all his imperfections, and he's quite imperfect, perfect. This is why his rise to greatness is so fricking impressive. Trump understands that, hey, we've got to redo these commercial relationships and start to bring manufacturing jobs back here to the United States of America. The manufacturing base drives everything else. You can't beat just a service economy. The people on Wall street that sat there, the Gary Coenzhar, sat in a ton of these meetings and argued that it's just dead fricking wrong. And now we got China, the great Mike Rowe and the CEO. It's a piece up on Fox that Mike Rowe, the kind of dirty hands guy talking about jobs, and the CEO of Ford Motor Company are both warning that China is doubling and tripling down right now to continue to hold all the manufacturing jobs, including manufacturing jobs related to artificial intelligence. This is an economic war, and President Trump's the first guy to sit there and go, no, this is why Liberation Day was so important, that we are going to redo the commercial relationships of the world. So you got two choices to get to the number one consumer market in the world. That would be the United States. You got a golden door. You're either going to pay a fee to do that or, and what we'd like to do is to bring your manufacturing here. That's right. Scott Bessel was down last Friday on the show with the Secretary of Treasury. Took about an hour and I think gave a very enlightening. A very enlightening. A very enlightening interview. A very enlightening interview. Because we weren't asking one gotcha question after the next. The Morning Joe thing kind of loses itself. And let me give some advice to the mainstream media. You sit there four or five on one, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. It's this is why nobody watches mainstream media. You could have had a very enlightening discussion with the Secretary of Treasury and gotten down to some of the important issues that are risk. This plan is not without risk. It's like anything in business or anything in economics. There are risks involved in everything. Always. The question is how do you mitigate that risk smartly and keep upside and keep driving the upside while you're mitigating the risk?

[Historical Commentator]

Risk.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

This is kind of business 101. It's kind of finance 101. It's no. There is no endeavor you have that is risk free. You can try to mitigate it to get the risk down to, I don't know, as close to risk free as you think at the time. That is an enlightening conversation. Having this plan has got some risk to it. This plan has. This plan is on one level a gamble on this theory of supply side tax cuts and to basically have massive investment and give incentives, tax, depreciation, all of it to incentivize people to put capital into plant and equipment. To do what? Oh, to rebuild the manufacturing base just like the tariff policy is to rebuild the manufacturing base. Now it turns out the revenue from the tax, the revenue from the tariff policy is much greater than everybody thinks and that's going to offset the deficit. Scott Bessant said right there I got the Secretary of Treasury on record that the deficits are, wait for it. Driving, you know, the price. The issue with the prices is not totally, maybe not even principally, but to a large extent driven by these massive federal deficits of $2 trillion per year. We ought to talk about the risk. We ought to talk about about are all these $19 trillion, all that, is that actually happening? This is why I called for in that Politico interview I gave Lutnick or somebody. Pick somebody, pick them. Don't pick Besson because he's got too much to do. Pick Lutnick or somebody else. Let's get a spreadsheet and let's see where the investments are and let's see where they're coming in. I don't want these foreign leaders, I don't want these people to tap us along. Let's see where it is. These companies say they're going to do it. Let's see where they're doing it, when they're going to do it, how they're going to do it. Let's go. So let's see it. You're going to have an economic rejuvenation to get back to manufacturing. Short commercial break from the arsenal of democracy, the United States of America. Back in a moment.

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[iHeart Radio Announcer]

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers are into true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show [e-mail] that's iheartadvertising.com or call 844-844-IHEART. One more time, call 844-IHEART and get podcasting working for you.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Folks are not thrilled about this idea of hundreds of thousands of foreign students in the United States. We have about 350,000 Chinese. One point during COVID you were gonna, you know, push to, you know, get them out, but that was pulled back. You've said as many as 600,000 Chinese students could come to the United States. Why, sir, is that a pro maga position when so many American kids want to go to school and there are places not for them and these universities are getting rich off Chinese money? Sure. Never said about China, but we do have a lot of people coming in from China. We always have China and other countries. We also have a massive system of colleges and universities. And if we were to cut that in half, we're to going, which perhaps makes some people happy. You would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business. So what? Well, I think that's a big deal. Are they fancy? You would have the United States. Yeah, but you would have, as you know, historically.

[Historical Commentator]

Okay.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

When we look at the global competition right now, let's go back to artificial intelligence, because I'm in my mind becoming more adamant every day that we are in a race with China. I don't think it helps when you have Jensen Huang, which this country's done so much for with Nvidia actively. And he's the head guy, right, Makes the chip everybody needs actively promoting the Chinese Communist Party and that we should share the chips and that it's logical for us to share the chips because we want the whole world off of his chips. And that we should give. And that we should give, by the way, when we get the President and we'll go to it. Okay, fine, maybe for security reasons, who knows? But the President, I think, has left the White House in a motorcade with the beast, I think, or maybe the suv. We'll find out, but we'll hopefully get a shot of that and we'll see him going to Arlington for a wreath laying ceremony. The. We'll get to that as soon as we get some live footage. We got Mo at West Point. We got Taj Gill with us, we got Patrick K. O' Donnell, who can tell us a lot about Armistice Day. And I think where the President's going is up to the tomb of the unknown. So we'll give you the background of that. So we're in a race and you have the lead guy saying, oh, we should just do this. And then you've got David Sacks. I get these comments out of the newsletter from Jake Sherman's shop that he's promoting that we've got to make chips available to everybody. Now you get this huge thing today about Microsoft's cutting the deal with UAE to get them advanced chips. Let's just go full stop. If this is a fairly dangerous technology, it's got potential, huge upside. Potential huge upside. Right now we see it taking essentially lower level administrative, managerial and tech jobs in our post industrial economy. And that's going to have. This is why I keep saying they've got to sell the supply side tax cut. We did it. The big beautiful bill did it. You made a bet. You're not going to be. You cannot unwind that bet. You just cannot do it. The way the American economy works and the application of capital into the system, these are long term plays. You couple the tariff situation, the trade reorganization, the reorganization of all the commercial activities in the world to basically drive American manufacture. You add on top of that a tax cut that should turbocharge that because the advantages it gives to capital and depreciation of capital and return on investment, all of it kind of a whole cloth. You're going to get to be a driver in this industry. All the research we've done are the universities, right? The great universities, the research labs, the weapons labs, that advanced AI. But when it gets down to it, if you're in a race and essentially an arms race, because I'm hearing over and over again they're trying to get there in back of us or they're trying to catch us, it's very simple. You cut them off of capital, right? So their cost of capital is higher and they got a scrounge. You cut them off from access to markets, you cut them off from. This is the Chinese Communist party. You cut them off from all training and education because we're training our enemies right now. You cut them out of all the company, get the Chinese nationals out of here. And look, we're the pro Laobaijing organization and I'm the head of three or four organizations that represent the Lao Baijing in trying to get their country back. But these kids that come over here don't have a choice. You've got to sign that document once you get over here, once you come here, that you've got to be basically an intelligence asset. You've got to feed back to them. And more importantly, it's taking space up from American citizens. So you cut them off of every possibility, every. If you're in an arms race on a technology supposed to be the defining technology of the 21st century and it has such major defense and national security and war making capability, why would we ever in a billion years give them access to anything? So you can't play both parts. You can't play both sides. We've got to now shut it down or start to shame people like David Sacks and like Jensen Huang, who are essentially agents of influence for the Chinese Communist Party of trying to get China access to chips, access to education, access to training, access to technical expertise. How about this? Not the nothing. It's like the scene in the Godfather. How about this? You pay for the senator, you pay for the gaming license. This is what you have to do. You have to play hardball and you have to play smash mouth. And if our college system, I don't know what Lutnick who completely botched the HB1 visa, explanation to the President. I don't understand what he or the Department of Education has explained to the President of the United States. And showing you the math about the college system here, yes, the foreign students pay more. But if that's just to pay a bunch of a bunch of tenured professors in these woke universities because they're all woke except for a handful to pay their tenured salaries in retirement, no thanks. And if half the system would collapse, you let's foreign students, number one. Let's open it up. Look at the acceptance rates. Let's open it up to American students. Let's open it up to African Americans, Hispanics, whites, all of it. If you're a US citizen, boom. Your kid's gonna get a shot. Guess what? They're just as intelligent, just as hardworking. Just give them a shot. I'd rather give them a shot than somebody from overseas. Hey, full stop. Does that make me a nativist? Does that make me a xenophobe? It makes it whatever. Hey, if that makes me anything, I don't give a tinker's damn. I care about American citizens. Citizens. I care about the kids of American citizens. I don't care about the Chinese Communist Party. I don't care about the elites of Europe sending their kids. I just don't. Once every kid wants every one of those bills like the HB1s, they can't show any, any technical expertise the foreigners have. They don't. It's all a scam to suppress and destroy American workers. And whoever givens President Trump, I'd like to see the business model that they're giving President Trump, the financial model of the university system. And hey, if 10% of the universities and colleges country are not going to make it because you're not taking foreign students, inundating it with foreign students, then it's either time to rethink your model or let capitalism work. Short commercial break. The president's en route to our wreath laying ceremony. We're here on Veterans Day in the war room. You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing. You are listening to me. Which, let's be honest, is kind of flattering. But my point Is, ads on iHeartRadio actually get heard in the car, at the gym, on the couch, while people are walking their dogs. Who's a good boy?

[Taj Gill]

Who's a good boy?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

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