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From the March 1, 2026, edition of Steve Bannon's War Room
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Curt Mills, you've been putting up stuff on Twitter. How do we get here, Curt?
And there's reporting I — at this news site you — you've showed me coming out. I guess I found it and sent to you, but it — you — you're very — you know it quite well. It's saying that President Trump one hand, he's saying thirty days, but there's also discussion that he may be looking for an off ramp in the next three or four days after he's pounded Tehran enough and eliminated enough of the — of the leadership of Iran. Your thoughts, sir?
CURT MILLS (GUEST): Yeah. I mean, we got here, frantically at the behest of the foreign power. I mean, as, the rabbi notes, I'm not entirely clear or not entirely sure, the appetite of the American people to absorb fatalities. Three Americans have been killed. Five apparently have been grievously wounded, and that's just what the government is conceding.
Very, notably, they're not telling us how they died. And very notably, the leading intellectual architects of this war, people like Senator Tom Cotton, are arguing now — they're already moving the goalpost to a small ground force as he told, the Sunday shows this morning.
This is an out of control war, and this is a war, that is being driven, frankly, by an older generation, that has —
BANNON: Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Take a deep breath. When you say out of control, as we've gone through the day militarily, it's pretty systematic how we're trying to take down their defenses in the — in the — in the leadership. Is that part out of control, or are you saying the expanding nature of it is out of control?
CURT MILLS: I'm not entirely sure. I mean, the fifth fleet just got hit yesterday. I mean, it's entirely unclear, with the exception of the supreme leader, if the Iranian — I mean, the bombings in a lot of ways were less severe than the ones in June of 2025, and the Iranian counterattacks are much more severe. And the Israelis are going to try to escalate this to keep the US in. They just basically carpet bombed Tehran.
They gave the Iranians, quote, the Gaza treatment. There was some idea that they were gonna treat Persians any different than Arabs. And I think there's gonna be a real desire to keep President Trump in here. I think the president has gotten very poor counsel, and I do think it matters politically that he was the no more endless wars candidate in 2016 and 2024, particularly, and this looks like an open betrayal of the base. And now there there's — there's an argument that this is different than the Bush era neocon wars. But I will flag, what Bush era neocon is not for this today? Find me one. Name one. Bolton is pleased as hell about what we're doing. He went he said his only regret is that he didn't convince Trump to do this in 2018.
BANNON: Talk to me about Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton has been doing the Sunday shows today. And when they put up a trial balloon, that means they're thinking of something. What Tom Cotton has now said, just a small — just a small a tiny, just a teensy ground force. Is are they running that up the flagpole and seeing if anybody salutes?
MILLS: For sure. Look. I mean, look. The president is impressed by Tom Cotton. He's an impressive guy. Double Harvard, young senator. He's very tall. He's a very charismatic guy.
BANNON: Combat veteran. Combat veteran.
MILLS: Combat veteran, it used to be said. Yeah. People look at him, and they they see CIA director, defense secretary, president. But the reality is, Cotton represents a constituency which is getting narrower and narrower and older and older in the American public. And he is frankly a foreign policy radical. He sees no real problem with the Bush legacy. He's a former protege of the Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, and he represents a strain of Republicanism that Trump's initial rise was all about rejecting. Remember, the never Trumpers were the neoconservatives. They still are in many respects. Trump's entire rise in 2016, and you know this more than any American alive, Steve, was against these folks.
BANNON: Amen. Amen. The — the National Review when they came out with that thing, never Trump or against Trump. One of the principal arguments was was neocon. President Trump had a totally different way of looking at it.
Before I leave you, Peter Baker, you just put a — you retweeted something that Peter Baker said and put some commentary on it. Now Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for the — our beloved paper of record, The New York Times. Talk to me quickly about this poll that he's just put up and your comments on it.
MILLS: Yeah. So, the the polling initially, conducted overnight on the strikes is overwhelmingly negative. But most importantly and most, central to this show, it appears that a majority of Republicans don't know why we're doing this and or don't support it. So look. I think it needs to be level set. Tens of millions of Americans are happy that Donald Trump is the president. I'm one of them. I don't regret regret my vote in for President Trump. I don't think Kamala Harris would be doing this better. But there is such a thing as motivation or opposition to the administration on on discrete issues. And a new war in The Middle East that looks a lot like the Iraq war, though it looks a lot like the same people making the arguments for the Iraq war, and, it — and, basically, an argument that is mired in the past, respectfully to Chairman Kennedy, or Brian Kennedy, who I like a lot and consider a friend, he's arguing about, military exercises that occurred in the 90s. A lot of people who voted for President Trump weren't alive when these military exercises occurred. Yes. Iran is an adversary of The United States, but it was not an imminent threat at all. It wasn't an imminent threat in in January 2025. This is not something that President Trump needed to handle for the interest of The United States. It's an Israeli objective. And why is it an Israeli objective? Because Israel wants to expand in the Middle East. Fine. That's their prerogative, but they shouldn't ask the American taxpayer or Republicans to support it.
BANNON: I want everybody to go to American Conservative.
By the way, one of the things I do find disturbing, if you look at Fox and the cheerleading of Fox, you have guys like Mark Thiessen, who's one of the greatest haters of President Trump. Some of these haters that hated President Trump tried to stop President Trump — Mark Levin being one of them. Mark Levin was one of the biggest haters of Trump, despised Trump. He was a Cruz guy. I mean, the stuff he said about Trump was nothing but vile. You see Fox and you see all these haters of Trump, and they're glazing President Trump. They're over the top in the same cheerleading you saw about the Iraq war, particularly in the first days. And remember, folks, you got a long way to go on this thing. So that's why you got — we're trying to be as even handed as possible on the War Room because we want the War Room posse to have all the information that's available.
Curt, American Conservative was formed in the crucible of the Iraq war by the great Pat Buchanan. You're now the editor.
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MILLS: I mean, look, Thiessen was — was George W. Bush's speechwriter. He's got Ukraine flags and Israeli flags in his Twitter bio. This is an actual dual loyalist, like, not a — not a conspiracy. He's openly declared as such.