THE WAR ROOM WITH STEPHEN K. BANNON, OCTOBER 29TH, 2025 (EP.#4886)

Summary

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

Episode #4886 – October 29, 2025
Theme: Countdown to November 5th—Elections, AI Disruption, and America’s Industrial Vulnerability

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Overview

In this episode, Steve Bannon returns to "The War Room" freshly out of federal prison, bringing renewed energy to discuss the urgent state of American politics, the upcoming pivotal November 5th elections, and existential risks facing the U.S.—from election integrity and political shifts to artificial intelligence’s looming job apocalypse and America’s declining industrial and military capacity. Bannon is joined in depth by investigative journalist and author Christopher Leonard and reporting from Jim VandeHei to break down the intersection between politics, industrial strategy, and the technological revolution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 2025 Elections: “Crush Them at the Ballot Box”

• Bannon’s Focus on Battleground States (PA, MI, WI, NV, AZ, GA, NC):

  • Emphasizes grassroots mobilization, not relying on commercials but on “walking precincts” and “working phone banks.”
  • “[On Nov. 5th] We have to put this beyond their ability to steal it… Only thing that's going to do it is you're putting your shoulder to the wheel.” (03:39)

• Criticism of Kamala Harris and Democratic Strategy:

  • Mocks the “politics of joy” campaign pivot to “night falls on America,” calling the shift desperate and reminiscent of “the American German bund in the 1930s.”
  • “This is a fascist movement… That is a bald faced lie and it’s a dangerous lie.” (01:36)

• Election Lawfare & Mark Elias:

  • Alerts audience to Democrat preparations for drawn-out legal fights post-election, referencing top election lawyer Mark Elias and the anticipated courtroom battles to contest results.
  • “The evening of November 5th is going to be Stalingrad, where Mark Elias is in court… They want to at least delegitimize his [Trump’s] victory.” (06:15)

2. Bannon’s Imprisonment & Return: “It Empowered Me”

• Experience in Federal Prison:

  • Bannon shares reflections on his four months at Danbury Federal Prison, stating the experience neither broke nor silenced him, but instead increased his resolve.
  • “Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris… thought they would shut down the War Room and break me. … I am more empowered today, more focused today, sharper today, in better shape today than I’ve ever been in my entire life.” (05:40)

• War Room and Grassroots Activity:

  • Reiterates commitment to being a “platform for the grassroots movement to have their voice heard.”
  • “This show has never been more powerful. … The audience has never been more powerful. And we're gonna deliver a knockout blow to your progressive insanity on the 5th of November.” (08:50)

3. AI “Jobs Apocalypse” & Economic Upheaval

• Artificial Intelligence Job Cuts:

  • Bannon introduces Jim VandeHei (via Axios/Axios report), discussing rapid job losses due to AI—citing layoffs at Target, Amazon, law, and medicine, and the rise of companies training AI to replace white-collar jobs.
  • VandeHei: “I cannot stress to parents, to students, to anyone who's in a job that could be imminently affected by AI, what a big deal this is.” (26:47)

• Corporate America & AI as a Threat:

  • Harshly criticizes Silicon Valley and “corporatists” for prioritizing efficiency over employment:
  • “They're not looking to get more productive. They're looking to get more efficient and get rid of the humans. … Let's screw them again and take that decade of their twenties away from them.” (22:04)

• Urgency for Political Response:

  • Bannon and VandeHei both emphasize that Congress and policymakers are not adequately addressing the threat:
  • “This should be the only topic that Congress is thinking about and talking about. I don't think most workers realize what's happening.” (28:00, VandeHei)

4. Industrial & Military Capability: America’s Emerging Weakness

• Christopher Leonard Interview—Defense, AI, and Rare Earths:

  • Explains that military AI is at a similar early but revolutionary phase as aircraft in WWII, with “millions of autonomous, self-directing drones” altering the balance of power.
  • “AI is an extraordinarily powerful technology. It's already changing the face of war… It's going to be transformative.” (34:31)

• Defending Taiwan: Munitions Shortages & Outdated Strategies:

  • The U.S. would “run out of these very important munitions in a matter of weeks” in a Taiwan conflict; China has the industrial capacity the U.S. had in 1940.
  • “There is not a giant Fort Knox of these munitions that we can just draw from endlessly at this moment.” (41:30, Leonard)

• Rare Earths & Chips—Critical Dependencies:

  • China controls ~90% of global rare earth production, vital for military hardware; U.S. industry is left “scrambling to work around the edges” or cut deals with China.
  • “It's highlighting a tremendous point of vulnerability in these global supply chains that echoes back to COVID lockdown when we could no longer make simple equipment like face masks.” (51:00, Leonard)

• Chips—The New “Bargaining Chip”:

  • “The chips… are the backbone of the future of military power. ... The stakes of who does and who doesn’t get these chips is just enormous.” (53:33, Leonard)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bannon’s Rally Cry:
  • “This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies. Because we're going medieval on these people.” (09:52)
• On AI Job Loss:
  • VandeHei: “I have not found a single CEO… who’s not told me privately they are slowing hiring or considering layoffs specifically because of AI.” (28:00)
• On Deindustrialization:
  • Leonard: “In 1940, we were China. … We have deindustrialized over decades, really diligently deindustrialized, worked really hard to move that capacity overseas. And now we are, we're reaping the impact of that.” (44:57)
• AI as Existential Threat:
  • Bannon: “Don't let corporate America lie to you. We don't have capitalism in this country. We're not a capitalist country. … They're lying to you.” (21:48)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:36] Election urgency, battleground states focus
• [04:16 – 05:40] Prison experience and War Room’s resilience
• [06:14 – 09:48] Election legal battles, Mark Elias, and Democratic strategies
• [21:47 – 25:30] AI, rare earths, and China as a strategic threat
• [26:19 – 29:22] Jim VandeHei on the AI jobs apocalypse
• [34:28] Christopher Leonard on AI’s revolution in military affairs
• [36:49 – 41:24] U.S. military’s material shortages and industrial decline
• [44:57] Leonard on America’s lost manufacturing advantage
• [49:28 – 53:28] Rare earths, chip supply, and high-stakes geopolitics

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Conclusions

This episode provides a stark, urgent warning about the future of American sovereignty, the stability of jobs, and the nation’s position in global power structures. Bannon frames the 2025 elections as part of a larger struggle—paralleled by AI-driven societal shifts and a national reckoning over deindustrialization and overdependence on strategic adversaries like China.

The blend of political rally, economic alarm, and military-industrial analysis creates a high-stakes atmosphere, urging listeners to both immediate activism and deeper strategic reflection.

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For further reading:

• Christopher Leonard’s writings: [Christopher Leonard Biz] and Twitter @cleonardnews

Next up:

• Dr. Roberts at the Heritage Foundation, following this segment.

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Transcript

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[Steve Bannon]

Back through the three phases.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Number one is the 5th of November. All that matters right now in places like Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, obviously other states, but these seven battleground states is to deliver something that that takes us to where Ohio and Florida are today. We have to put this beyond their ability to steal it because don't think for a second by hiring Mark Elias and the gang of thugs around him that they don't look at phase two. They understand she can't Kamala Harris. It's impossible for her to generate any enthusiasm. Number one, what she had to do was to focus on one thing and drive the narrative. Her politics of joy was too ill defined. She didn't do it. So what did they do last week? They pivoted. Tonight falls on America. This is a fascist movement that the people that support it are equivalent to the American the American German bund in the 1930s. That is a bald faced lie and it's a dangerous lie. So number one, on November 5th we have to crush them at the ballot box and there's only one way to do that. The commercials aren't going to do it. Only thing that's going to do it is you're putting your shoulder to the wheel. The hard work of walking precincts, the hard work of working phone banks, the hard work of texting nonstop, and we have to put in superhuman efforts to support the Elon Musk of the world, to support the Charlie Kirks of the world, to support the other organizations that are out there doing this. Victory is at hand. That you could see the collapse of this kind of phony campaign by Kamala Harris. The politics of joy, right? And she had nothing to back it up whatsoever. And you can see the beginning in the polls start to come our way. I'm very proud that the war room has had President Trump's back and particularly has been the platform for the grassroots movement to have their voice heard. And I said at that time that with the hard work of the get out the vote effort and the election integrity effort, that we were on the cusp of having an incredible, incredible victory that could actually be a potential landslide. Now we come to today, and I'm finally out of being a political prisoner by the Merrick Garland, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi regime.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

For standing up for my political beliefs against an illegitimate committee in the House that did not have a ranking member and did not have minority counsel. I went to a federal prison for four months. Now, Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland thought they were going to do two things. Number one, they were going to shut down the war room and not have that as a voice for the grassroots movement of MAGA in this country. Number two, break me. Well, I think you can see today I'm far from broken. I've been empowered by my four months at Danbury Federal Prison. Thought they would shut down the war.

[Steve Bannon]

Room and take our power away.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

The show is bigger and more powerful than it's ever been. And please, it's not a podcast. We take the live, streaming television show every day in the radio show, and we turn it into a podcast. So, my brothers and sisters at cnn, when you say the podcast number is off slightly, Right. It hasn't. We were the largest podcast, but we're streaming. We stream on television and we play.

[Steve Bannon]

On radio and online.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

And Nancy Pelosi thought a federal prison was going to break me. Well, it empowered me.

[Steve Bannon]

God bless you.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

It empowered me. I am more empowered today, more focused today, sharper today, in better shape today than I've ever never been in my entire Life. So Nancy Pelosi, suck on that number two. And we're going to have, hopefully Mike Davis and Boris Epstein and Bill McGinley, three of the prominent leaders in the legal effort to combat Mark Elias. They are signaling you right now what they're going to do every day with.

[Steve Bannon]

You see, oh, we're going to delay.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We can't count the vote for seven days. We're going to take mail in ballots five days later, every day after November. The evening of November 5th is going to be Stalingrad, where Mark Elias is in court. And they're going to do this to slow it down. If they can't. If they can't take it away from Trump, if they can't nullify it right there, they can't nullify it right there. They want to at least delegitimize his victory. Remember, Jamie Raskin is out there dovetailing off of Nancy Pelosi's interview in the Rolling Stone, where she says, I only have one purpose in my life. My purpose is to make sure that Donald Trump is never reelected President United States, and he never sets foot into the White House again. And Jamie Raskin has been very upfront. If they take the House, even by a single vote, 218 to 217, what they will do is sit there and say that Trump is an insurrectionist, that, hey, Bannon, and have already went to prison. Trump's been indicted, he's an insurrectionist, and he cannot, he cannot take the office of the presidency. All that's in front of us, the desperation of Kamala Harris and her campaign is obvious. They went from the politics of joy, and we were the first ones to call it, to darkness and night falls on America. And they pivoted hard.

[Steve Bannon]

You know why?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Her incoherent explanation for what the politics of joy is befuddled everybody. So she had to go back to the same playbook. Trump's a fascist. His followers are not deplorables. They're fascist that they're a danger to the country. Well, you know who doesn't buy this? Working class people don't buy it. And particularly African American and Hispanic men do not buy it. And I will tell you, if President Trump's grassroots forces combine as we can combine right now, you're going to see unbelievable numbers next Tuesday. However, the Democrats are not going to give up. They just hired Mark Elias. And you only hire Mark Elias, who I think is the toughest election lawyer in the country. You only hire Mark Elias when you want to go to the mattresses. They understand they can't beat us at the ballot box. We're going to have a reprise of 2020 where they're going to try to do everything humanly possible to nullify and nullify Trump's election and delegitimize his second term. And I can tell you right now that the working class people in this country, the middle class people in this country that support Donald John Trump are not gonna let that happen. Take out your number two pencil and write this down. This show has never been more powerful. The voices behind it have never been more powerful. The audience has never been more powerful. And we're gonna deliver a knockout blow to your progressive insanity on the 5th of November. And then we're gonna secure the deal after that. And number two, the four months in federal prison not only didn't break me, it empowered me. I am more energized and more focused than I've ever been in my entire life. And I can see clearly, just like in 2016 and in 2020, exactly what's going on here and what we have.

[Steve Bannon]

To do to defeat it.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

This is the primal scream of a dying regime.

[Steve Bannon]

Pray for our enemies. Because we're going medieval on these people. You're just not going to 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?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

MAGA media. I wish in my soul, I wish.

[Christopher Leonard]

That any of these people had a conscience.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Ask yourself, what is my task and.

[Steve Bannon]

What is my purpose?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

If that answ is to save my country, this country will be saved. War room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Ban.

[Steve Bannon]

It's Wednesday the 29th of October in the year of our Lord 2025. So what, 3am I've got that on top of my getter account. I've had it there ever since the photo was taken. That's Mo Bannon greeting me at Danbury, where I come through the. Come through the wire on my. On my first day out. Welcome to the war. Boy, that was pretty prescient, wasn't it? You guys did a pretty good job. Of course, on the 29th of September, the only thing I put out, put out the entire time I was at Danbury because, you know, people would interview me, all that. Not going to do that. Don't have time for that crap. You got to Be focused in. And I gotta thank Segal, Chada and Grace and Mo and Boris and everybody that I was able to communicate with every day through our own coded language on the computer there. And you only get so much time on the computer and then you got other people because only a couple of computers for every cell block.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

To get.

[Steve Bannon]

The word out, I sent on the 29th of September, I think it was. So it was a month before this. A. I think it was the 29th of September, and Rahim was nice enough to put it up at the National Pulse and it went viral after that. And I said, look, this race is over. If we execute the strategy set, you can tell the players are in place, early voting started, and the motivation of the grassroots is the highest I've ever seen. And we're going to win a sweeping victory across the board if we execute. But it's over for Kamala Harris. Remember how she pivoted from the politics of joy to the darkness falls on America? That was the beginning of their Trump's a fascist, Trump's an authoritarian. Because I called, I said in losing, they're going to try to create a narrative that President Trump's a fascist. And because of your hard work, because that's what populism is. Populism is where you put it back on the shoulders of the people and they respond. They use their agency. Their agency. And if you take that from a year ago, and that was the. Both the press conference I had at the. At the Regency Hotel and then followed on where we did the. We did a show, right? You could say that today it's a pretty good called shot. Why is it a pretty good called shot? Because I know this audience and I know what working class and middle class people wanted and wanted to stop the illegitimate regime. Now, yesterday we had the oversight committee tell us that the pardons and the executive orders, and look, the pardons are huge, are inoperative, but the executive orders are actually bigger. It's a bigger part of the story. And the mainstream media is not covering that because they understand, as I said when they stole the election in 2020, the liabilities alone in having government action on a government that was not legitimate is mind blowing. But here we know as executive orders were inoperative. And I said right there in that it's an illegitimate regime. And remember Nancy Pelosi and that entire crowd that put me in prison, put Peter Navarre in prison, put the J6, all the heroes, the men and women of J6, put them in prison and some for, you know, 10 and 15 years. They all ran up and begged, crawled on their bellies and begged, including the staffs and the chief of staff that perjured herself, or, excuse me, the chief counselor perjured herself. In my case. We didn't make a big deal at the time because knew the whole thing was rigged. We're not gonna sit there and whine, oh my gosh, it's so terrible. They're lying. Of course they're gonna lie. They hate America. You wanna know how much they hate America? Look what's happening in New York right now. And they're all getting on board. That's their new. Their new politics is the phony politics and joy of dancing. Skipping to a store with the TikTok on TikTok on the Chinese county party and the PLA's PSYOP platform. Look where they've come. They can't stop Trump. They can't stop the Maga movement. Is everything happening right now perfect? No, it's not perfect. It's got some imperfections to it. We always have to continue to say, hey, maybe it's America first, because the pressures around the White House are monumental. But Next man up was pretty good. All the hosts that did it, everybody I, you know, everybody to thank, to keep this show going and continue to have it as a powerhouse. Because why? It's the platform for your human agency. We put a lot on you because you're what stands between the nation and the abyss. You've got President Trump's back in good times and bad. This is part of the Trump 28 phase one, unmask the never Trumpers. And they're out there so great. They're running to the mic. Tel Aviv Levin. Oh, they love Trump.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Until he, until he puts Qatar and.

[Steve Bannon]

Turkey in charge, they ain't loving on him. Now the Constitution says that's bs. There's four or five different alternatives, all in due time. In the fullness of time, folks. Short break, Back in the warm in a moment.

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Steve Bannon]

It's totally free.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Steve Bannon]

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

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[Steve Bannon]

Artificial intelligence. Oh, and Chris Lander is going to join us in a moment. The great author of Lords of Easy Money, a seminal work which we talk about a lot here. Artificial intelligence. Okay, let's just get some programming right here folks, tonight. So we're going to do the two shows right? We are going to then come back at 10pm tonight on Real America's Voice, the war room. And we're going to go until whenever the Xi and Trump meeting. How long it takes let's say it's midnight, one in the morning. I don't know, but there's a lot of. There's a lot coming out about this now. There are many, many big issues. Obviously, trade, soybeans, Taiwan, the defense of Taiwan. The twos should jump off the page. They have a knife to our throat. As much as we want to spin it as Australia and the New Deal with them and playing footsie with Lula for the heavy rare earths in Brazil, all of that's all great. That's some time in the distance because the globalists allowedthe globalists allowed the processing, the heavy processing facilityI think it was in Ohio and other places throughout the country to be bought by the Chinese Communist Party. Basically, during Obama's administration, with Joe Biden, who we know now was in business or getting in business with the Chinese Communist Party. This is why to me it's treasonous activity. And with the drug addicted sex addict son that is all displayed in the laptop from hell of which we brought with Rudy Giuliani, brought to the public's attention. I don't know, three weeks before the 2020 election with Miranda Devine and Emma Jo Morris and all these heroes at the New York Post, and of course the intelligence apparatus, who we have still not indicted, came out and lied and said it's all Russian disinformation. So Mike Morellon, those guys are still not perp walked yet. Brennan's in process. We've got to get everybody signed. That letter should be perp walked. Perp walked.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So.

[Steve Bannon]

The rare earths are massive, right? The Chinese Communist Party has a knife to our throat. Industrial production will stop in four to six weeks. This is, this is the facts. They'll stop in four to six weeks unless we get the magnets and other things associated with heavy rare earths, not just the dirt, that is rare earths, as importantly, artificial intelligence. The chips called the Blackwell chip. And of course, what is it? Jensen Huang is an agent of influence for the Chinese Communist Party, full stop. And he comes on and says, china hawks. I just found out what that term meant. Lie. I didn't know. It's a badge of honor. It's really a badge of shame. Lie. He's the one in President Trump's ear and he's trying to ship these Blackwell chips, the advanced chips, to China.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

What did I say when I signed.

[Steve Bannon]

This proclamation last week about artificial intelligence? And we've warned everybody here, don't let corporate America lie to you. We don't have capitalism in this country. We're not a capitalist country.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

We are a court.

[Steve Bannon]

This is corporatism. This is state capitalism. This is just another version what the Chinese Communist Party has. They're lying to you. These layoffs are coming from artificial intelligence. They're not looking to get more productive. They're looking to get more efficient and get rid of the humans. And it's not a blue collar thing right now. It's going to be a white collar thing. Administrative managerial tech at lower levels. So, like, we haven't screwed this youngest generation enough. Let's screw them again and take that decade of their twenties away from them. When they actually get into the workforce, they start learning their craft. They have these tremendous experiences. As I said when I signed the proclamation that we have to have scientific and technical concurrence agreement in the nation's population has to understand what's going on. We have to put some guardrails up because you have these maniacs in Silicon Valley and people like Jensen Huang that are driving this and what did I say? We have everything in our hands to cripple the Chinese Communist party and comes artificial intelligence for money and expertise and training and education and wait for it, the chips. So we can't hand our mortal enemy a gun. They got a knife to our throat. We can't give them a bullet to put in the chamber to put the gun to our head. We've got a knife to our throat and a gun pressed up against our temple. It's time to play smash mouth. And yes I realize, oh you can't decouple Steve, it's not practical. You're right, it's not practical. You know what is also not practical? Telling the British go screw themselves and go into war with them back in 1775. You think the odds were long then? Yeah, the odds were quite long. Did they sit there and go well gosh, I don't know. We can't decouple from the aristocracy. We can't decouple from the British East India Company. We can't decouple from commons. We're Englishmen, we can't do that. One third of our nation agreed with that. The Tories here, one third. The shape shifters, the fence sitters. Hey, I must see who wins this. There's a hard bitten patriots said screw yourself, throw down. How about this? Get, get on the receiving action of a little buckshot coming from Lexington Commons or standing at, standing at the bridge at Concord. It has to happen here now. They're the mortal enemy of the Chinese people. Lao Bajing. This is the Chinese Communist Party most murderous dictatorship in mankind's history. It's time Wall street stopped kowtowing to him. The, the corporatists in this nation stopped kowtowing to him. The broligarchs in Silicon Valley stop crowding because that's the pressure on Trump. It's coming from the David Sacks and those guys. Oh gosh, we got to, you know, we're partners, we're going to do this together. We're going to bring the world to peace and prosperity. They got a knife to our throat now and you give them the chips, put a bullet in the chamber. These are not our allies. These are not our friends. They're not friends. That Chinese kid, the people in China allowed by Jing. They've killed. They've killed what, 250 million. They brag about it. They're not.

[Jim VandeHei]

They're not hide it.

[Steve Bannon]

They brag about it. The Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the collectivization of the Chinese peasants. They brag about it. And that ain't counting, folks. 450 million. 450 million forced abortions. 80% about little Chinese girls, female. Is that the feminists outrage about that? Are they outside the Chinese embassy? No, because all half of this, half of the undertaking of antifa and this revolution going on in the United States is underwritten by them. Subversion's their thing. Well, they ain't gonna subvert here. Let's play. I tell you, we got vanderhei. Let's play a couple of minutes of it. It's about seven minutes long. Let's go and play a couple minutes of the AI jobs apocalypse. You ever heard of that before? You ever heard of that? Let's go and play it.

[Jim VandeHei]

Target announcing cuts, slashing thousands of corporate roles. In their statements, companies cited in part growing pressure to operate more efficiently and to embrace the use of artificial intelligence. So, Jim vandehei, that brings us around to your piece with Mike Allen looking at how an AI job apocalypse unfolds in front of us. And it does seem to be accelerating, especially yesterday with that news From Amazon of 14,000 jobs cut and then explicitly writing in their statement about the role of AI in the cuts. Yeah, I think it's hard for viewers and readers to realize, to sort through all the news and like really seize on what matters. I cannot stress to parents, to students, to anyone who's in a job that that could be imminently affected by AI, what a big deal this is. You have all of these companies basically saying they're either laying off employees or that they're dramatically slowing, slowing hiring over the next year because of automation and because of AI at the same time. You had this company Mercur, a couple days ago raise money at a $10 billion valuation. It's a two year old company started by and run by 22 year olds who are college roommates and then dropped out not long ago. What that company does and the reason it got such a high valuation is it basically pays doctors and lawyers and other professionals to train AI to basically do their job so that companies can then do the work of humans using robots or using artificial intelligence. This is unfolding very fast and maybe it's not as bad as the naysayers say, there's no doubt. I've not found a single CEO that I have talked to in the last six months who's not told me privately that they are dramatically slowing hiring or not backfilling jobs when people leave or considering layoffs specifically because of AI. This should be the only topic that Congress is thinking about and talking about. I don't think most workers realize what's happening. In our piece we linked to this report by Microsoft that was done this summer that shows you all of the tasks and all of the jobs that are most vulnerable. If you're in one of those jobs or if your kid is going to school and considering those professions, you've got to be thinking about this. You have to be thinking about how can I do that job if artificial intelligence can do it for free or do it better? In some cases it can make you a better employee, but it might force you to think about doing something differently. And I don't think politicians are leveling with the American people. They're not talking about the extent of what's going to happen over the next three years. That doesn't mean AI couldn't be a massive boom like other technologies over a long horizon. But in the short term, it's really hard to see how a lot of people aren't going to end up struggling and trying to find a new job, especially if you're entry level coming out of college.

[Steve Bannon]

Now that is the most informed show in Washington D.C. for the consensus thinking and they're sitting there with the audience going, you probably haven't heard this. We got to start focusing on the War Room Posse's been on this what we've been on four years because of the great Joe Allen, but very focused on this for the last year or two. The jobs apocalypse is coming in. The four horsemen of the apocalypse, the frontier companies don't want any regulations to do that. We've got to make sure the Chinese Communist Party is handcuffed with no chips. Short Commercial break Christopher Leonard on the.

[Jim VandeHei]

Other side.

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, welcome back. Birch Gold Times are turbulent. The world's financial markets. Gold has been a hedge. Now it's a new asset class. We're going back to the 19th century rapidly. Talk to the Birch Gold guys. Go to two ways. Birch Gold into the dollar Empire. Seven free installments. Working on an eighth. Been putting it out for four years. Get you up to speed on everything about the dollars of prime reserve currency and how that's related to gold and how the BRICS nations are in a massive DE dollarization program. Birchgold.com ended the dollar empire. Slash Bannon into the dollar empire and you get to talk to Philip, Patrick and the team. We also have another version that's directly related to investing in physical gold. Just take your phone out and text Bannon Bannon 989-898. Get access to the ultimate guide which happens to be free of investing in gold and precious metals. Do not forget silver in the age of Trump. It's not the era of Trump, it's the age of Trump. Like he had the age of Jackson, the age of Trump. So check it out today. Birch in times of Turbulence. Let's find out why it's a hedge. Okay. Christopher Leonard, you are a kind of a hero to this audience. For the Lords of Easy Money, one of the best books that one should read if you want to understand economic populism and what it really means and how the how the system is stacked against you. You're also, but you're now shifting. You're actually doing a book. And you take years of research to do this. We talked to you about it in Kansas City a little bit that when we were out there with the Hillsdale College to speak a while ago. It takes you years to study. You've got a great article piece up in Politico I want to get to about how, hey, folks, wait a second. Do we have the armaments we think we have and why don't we have them? But you are spending a lot of time on artificial intelligence and military use. Can you explain how important is artificial intelligence right now in everything dealing with the conduct of war?

[Christopher Leonard]

Yeah. So, as you know, as we talked about, I'm writing a book about the defense industry that goes all the way back to 1932 and up through today. And I'll tell you, when I'm looking at artificial intelligence today in the military realm, it reminds me me a lot of the role that aircraft played in the early 1940s. What I'm trying to say is that in the early 40s, aircraft was this revolutionary technology that was changing the world. We were on the cutting edge of it. And military planners knew that aircraft were going to play a role, an important role in fighting war, but they didn't know exactly how. And that is in my mind all the time right now as I'm out here visiting with people, interviewing people in industry, going to arms trade shows, what they know is that AI is an extraordinarily powerful technology. It's already changing the face of war. As you've seen in Ukraine, it has revolutionized how war is fought. And right now you've got a lot of upstart companies, Anduril, Shieldai, Palantir, that are starting to harness this technology and use it. Everybody knows it's going to be transformed. Everybody knows it's going to play a central role in the next conflicts, should they come. But what's unclear is exactly how this is going to play out. And you know, what we saw with aviation technology is that once the shooting starts, so to speak, it gains a momentum of its own and the technology is going to get used however, it needs to be used to win a conflict once it starts. So I guess what I'd say is we are at the early stages of this technology being unleashed in conflict. But everybody who's around it knows that it's going to be transformative. I was talking with a guy who runs a company called SHIELD AI that is making these networks of autonomous drones. And I mean it's shocking to talk to people like this. They're saying that the entire force structure that we conceive of with battleships, with F35 jets, it's not that it's totally obsolete, but it's going to be completely changed when you have armies of autonomous self directing drones, millions of drones that can pilot themselves and kill the enemy that are going to be out on the battlefield. So we know it's going to change everything, but it's at the early stages.

[Steve Bannon]

Right now when you say early stages, let's talk about the defense of Taiwan. Since Taiwan's 90 miles off of the coast of mainland China and you have the seventh Fleet and kind of carrier battle groups. Do you think carrier battle groups and carrier strike groups are a relic of the past? Given this new drone warfare? If you can send 10,000 drones to just hit ait'd be like kamikaze right off of Okinawa in like 45. Are we prepared to fight, particularly fight at sea, this new artificial intelligence warfare?

[Christopher Leonard]

This is what I can say, and to be clear, like I am not a military analyst, I'm just, just talking to people who are at this moment it's too early to say that the battle carriers, that these things are obsolete. What I can tell you for sure is that there is tremendous concern inside the Pentagon, outside the Pentagon, that we're not equipped to handle a large scale conflict in the Straits of Taiwan, for example. And here's what I mean by that. You know, the article you mentioned that went up this week in Politico magazine is really about our munitions. Because what we do know is that any conflict in the Straits of Taiwan will unfold extremely rapidly, almost surely and it's going to create tremendous demand for these very high end guided missiles, mid range missiles. And there was a war game that's really important that was conducted by the center for Strategic and International Studies. CSIS is this old pretty well established think tank in D.C. and what this war game showed is that the United States would run out of these very important munitions in a matter of weeks. And if there was a full scale conflict in Taiwan, and what's unclear to us is how quickly the Chinese themselves would run out because they keep their missile stocks under lock and key. It's hard to gauge the exact numbers that they have, but as you know, they have tremendous industrial capacity in China. They have the industrial capacity that was the equivalent of what the United States had in 1940 that allowed us to win World War II, too. And so there's huge concern in the Pentagon that even if we were to have a conflict on the terms as it now exists, like leave AI to the side for a second with drone swarms and all the rest, that we would run out of munitions in a matter of weeks. And these missiles that we would run out of, take years to build, are incredibly sophisticated with these guidance systems and all the rest. These aren't artillery shells. And, you know, what I've been looking at is the supply chain the United States has to produce these munitions. And again, I'm not trying to dodge the question here, but, you know, this is a question separate of AI and how that's going to change with the drone swarms. And I would describe that as a huge question mark. Yes.

[Steve Bannon]

Hang on, hang on, hang on. I thought we were the greatest industrial power in the world. And every time I look around, we're cutting some deal with the Ukraine. I mean, we're stealing the eu. Excuse me, not us, the eu with our wink and a nod, the EU is stealing the Russian people's assets for the first time. It's one of the reasons gold's been on fire. They're stealing $380 billion to pay, basically give it to Ukraine to, then Ukraine pay the United States for munitions. We're sending, I think, Patriots and thaads and everything, you know, Aegis class cruisers to the Eastern Med to defend Israel when Netanyahu is trying to trump up this war with the Persians, we're sending munitions everywhere. Is that in your calculus? Is that the reason? Or is it just we just don't have the industrial capacity because we ship that industrial capacity over to China because they had nothing. So is it that we're giving the world, you know, what is it Palmer Luckey keeps saying? We don't want to be the world's policeman, we want to be the world's gun shop? Well, to be the gun shop, you got to be able to produce the guns, metaphorically. Are you saying we can't do that, or are we already given our top priority, went to Ukraine and went to Israel.

[Christopher Leonard]

Sir, huge question. So much going on here. Here's what I would say. As we do give away these munitions around the world at this moment, I cannot overstate the level of alarm inside the Pentagon about our reserve of these munitions. For example, you know about the Thaad, Thaad batteries that went over to Israel and many Thaad interceptors were fired off to protect Israel against the attack from Iran. Every one of those missiles is a tremendous precious resource. Let me tell you this. One of the people I interviewed for this article is an army colonel who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Looking at our defense industrial base and looking at our ability to ramp up production, to meet new needs, to keep our own supplies of the these munitions in place and to even increase our supply. And she was tremendously concerned. What I'm telling you now is that for the United States itself there is a wait time measured in years to get new interceptor missiles, to get new mid range missiles, long range missiles, even the stuff we fire from drones or helicopters, like the Hellfire missile, which was a bread and butter munition of the war on terror. There's a two year wait for new Hellfire missiles right now. So what we have are these reserve stocks of these munitions. And as they're used in combat around the world right now, we're basically burning down those reserves we have as there's a tremendously long wait time for new reserves. So what I would say is that we've gotten into this position where our defense industrial base is really scrambling to keep up with demand. There is not a giant Fort Knox of these munitions that we can just draw from endlessly at this moment. And as I said, I mean, you're looking at war games right now that say we would run out of missiles in a matter of weeks and in some munitions maybe a month or two if there was a full scale conflict in Taiwan. So there really is a lot of concern that we don't have the industrial capacity to produce what we need and the time we would need to get these munitions out into the field.

[Steve Bannon]

So when Pearl harbor was attacked, right, that was when Churchill, I think late that night he talked to FDR and he said when he went to bed, it was the first time that he actually believed in his heart of hearts that they were going to survive. Because the United States was in the war. And the reason was the arsenal of democracy, which really was Detroit or coming out of Detroit, this massive ability to do mass production, industrial scale, mass production. Are you telling us in your research for your book you're coming to the conclusion? And by the way, I only got a minute. In fact, I'll wait and give you some Runway on the side, other side on this, that the Chinese Communist Party, because Wall street and the corporatists shipped and the private equity guys and the venture capitalists, Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs, all of them shipped our industrial capacity to mainland China, that we're no longer the arsenal of democracy. In fact they are really the arsenal of totalitarianism.

[Christopher Leonard]

CHRISTOPHER what I would say is in 1940 we were China. We were the world's manufacturing colossus. You talk about Detroit. I just spent about a week in Burbank, California where Lockheed Aircraft began. That was a manufacturing town where every other employee knew how to take apart and rebuild an engine. Everybody knew the industrial arts intimately and that's what created the war machine of the 1940s. You look at the United States in 2025, we have deindustrialized over decades, really diligently deindustrialized, worked really hard to move that capacity overseas. And now we are, we're reaping the impact of that. And it's not to say the game is over, but we are not what we were in 1940. There's no question about that. And the industry is struggling to keep up.

[Steve Bannon]

CHRISTOPHER Just hang her for one second. Short commercial break CHRISTOPHER Leonard on the other side.

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[Stephen K. Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

[Steve Bannon]

Hometitleock.com promo code Steve, go talk to Natalie Dominguez and the team today. Every dream you've ever had is in that home, if you're fortunate enough to own one. And trust me, if you're under 35, it's been a struggle. 90% of your net worth is tied up in that home, in the equity in it. People under 35, you know, the Russian serf class in our country now that are getting eviscerated by artificial intelligence job apocalypse, it's going to be even tougher for them. So don't let you know, AI, cyber rogue lawyer, rogue accountant, rogue family member, anything get their mitts on that title. Hometitlelock.com promo code Steve, talk to Natalie Dominguez of the team today, Christopher Leonard. And Leonard, here's why the audience loves you. I will rant and rave and try to bait you and you just come back. Well, Steve, let's just look at the facts, okay? It's so great. That's why Lord's easy money is so powerful. And I know this book on the defense industry is going to be incredible. Talk to me, though, about let's go rare earths first and then artificial intelligence, because one leads the other. The heavy rare earths. I keep saying it's a knife to the throat of President Trump as he tries to negotiate because they understand they can shut the production lines down, the industrial production lines down in four to six weeks. Your thoughts on that.

[Christopher Leonard]

Critically important issue. And it's really just another facet of what we've been talking about, which is, you know, military power is intimately intertwined with the power of industrial production. And, you know, industrial production goes all the way from, from the factory floor with, with well trained factory workers. And by the way, I've got to say, these folks who work in these factories are highly, highly skilled, incredibly well trained people. You know, we think of a factory as punching out metal parts, but these folks are working with microcircuit boards and all the Rest. But that work traces all the way around the world back to rare earth mines. And this is all part of the supply chain. What's so interesting is how there was a great article in the Wall Street Journal last week about how the United States essentially traded away its capacity to mine rare earth minerals. We sort of got that business off the board because it seemed like less profitable. And we sort of left that work to China, which really aggressively moved into that space with state run enterprises with a strategic goal that we're seeing play out now. I mean, China's move to license the use of rare earths, which essentially kind of unilaterally takes control of over who can and cannot use these processed rare earths, is just a tremendous leveraging of the power they've developed by developing this industry. So what does that mean for us? I mean, as you know, it's very well reported, these, these minerals are used in very specific niche components like special magnets that are in fighter jets, missiles, of course, consumer products like cars. But for our concerns, they're just vital components of all, almost all military hardware, very advanced military hardware. And I mean, I will tell you, it's not like the defense companies or the Pentagon are just sitting back passively. I was over in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year and an executive for Lockheed Martin was talking about the very assertive actions they're taking to try to source these minerals from around the world. They're trying to stockpile reserves of these minerals and the components made from these minerals. So it's not like they're just passively sitting back and letting China control it. But it is such an uphill battle. China produces roughly 90% of all these rare earth minerals. So what that leaves is these defense companies and others, you know, scrambling to work around the edges in that other 10% of the market or cut deals with China to continue to have access to this. And I just think there's no doubt about it that it, it's highlighting a tremendous point of vulnerability in these global supply chains that kind of echoes back to those moments of the COVID lockdown where we found we could no longer make simple equipment like face masks. And so this is another point of vulnerability in the sort of global supply chain that we've been relying on for decades to produce the defense materials we need.

[Steve Bannon]

But where we have the commanding heights is in chip, advanced chip design and chip production, particularly with our allies in Taiwan. That's why these negotiations are so important, particularly about the Blackwell chip and others. And you just mentioned that warfare's changing right to massive armies or massive fleets of these self autonomous autonomous drones. Where do we stand right now? How big a stake is it? How high are the stakes about the entire negotiations on chips?

[Christopher Leonard]

Stakes are enormous. As you know, these chips are the backbone of the future of military power. I really do think that that's fair to say. The chips have become a bargaining chip. Not to use that kind of cliche, but as you know, you know when we sell weapons around the world, and by the way, the United States is the world's largest exporter of sophisticated weaponry. We control 40% of the global market. This isn't a market like automobiles or televisions. Every, every weapon sold, it's sort of like the, the currency of geopolitics. You give this important technology to your allies, you withhold it from your opponents. These chips, the Nvidia chips, the, the chips that apparently Trump is going to be talking about with Xi, these are the foundation, these are the backbone of the future of military power. And as you can see, you know, when Trump was over in the Middle east, he made a deal to export some of these chips to our close ally, the United Arab Emirates. They are rapidly building enormous infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. A backbone of compute power based on these chips. So this is sort of the race for establishing the foundational power of AI in the future. And the stakes of who does and who doesn't get these chips is just enormous.

[Steve Bannon]

Christopher, where do people go to get your writings? The political story is amazing. We're going to push it out. We did it the other day and push it again. Where do folks go to keep up with all your research and thoughts?

[Christopher Leonard]

All all my articles are Christopher Leonard Biz. I'll be putting that Politico article up there today, hopefully soon. And I'm see Leonard news on Twitter.

[Steve Bannon]

Christopher Leonard a steady, a steady eddy, a safe pair of hands. The lords of easy money. And new research coming out about the defense industry. Christopher, thank you so much. Carving out time to do this. Appreciate you. Isn't it ironic that we leave with the right stuff off a classic novel, A magnificent film, a great score about America at its height. The space program in the 50s and the test pilots in the 50s and early 1960s. Dr. Roberts at Heritage next in the war room.

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[Steve Bannon]

You know what your customers are doing right this second? The exact same thing.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You are listening to me. Which, let's be honest, is kind of flattering.

[Steve Bannon]

But my point is, ads on iHeartRadio actually get heard. In the car, at the gym, on.

[Jim VandeHei]

The couch, while people are walking their dogs.

[Steve Bannon]

Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy?

[Stephen K. Bannon]

You're a good boy.

[Steve Bannon]

That's right, dude. You're a good.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

So why not make the next ad about you?

[Christopher Leonard]

Get started today.

[Stephen K. Bannon]

Call 844-844, iheart or go to iheartadvertising.com.

[Steve Bannon]

That'S 844-844 iheart or iheartadvertising.com this is an iheart podcast.