"Trump is at war with the permanent political class, the opposition party media and basically he's at economic war with China" — Steve Bannon’s old news gets on to MSNBC this Friday news dump evening, as Bannon made excuses for Trump’s support for Nazis at Charlottesville.
Bannon’s trying to regain relevance outside the RWNJ circuit in Europe. Imagine the Catholic League in the pennant race against the Justice League.
Appearing on MSNBC, Bannon was asked by host Ari Meiber whether Trump was wrong to utter his much-criticized statement that there was “blame on both sides” following the clashes between white supremacists, neo-Nazis and those protesting them.
“No, he’s absolutely correct,” Bannon said. “What he’s saying is that the discussion about the Confederate monuments, whether the Confederate moments should be covered, whether the Confederate monuments should be removed, or whether the Confederate monuments of these generals are part of Southern heritage.”
Bannon and Trump had a very public falling out earlier this year due to Bannon’s negative comments about Trump in Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury. But, whether his help is wanted or not, Bannon has unveiled a new political operation designed to help the president and Republicans in the midterms.
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That’s at least 22 interviews over the course of six months (it’s entirely possible that I missed a few Bannon interviews while compiling this list, since he will talk to literally anyone). By now it seems reasonable to ask what, if anything, we stand to learn from this many-times discredited former White House official who is hanging out with far-right European extremists and whose most recent foray into U.S. politics was his failed attempt to elevate an accused child molester to the U.S. Senate.
The former head of Breitbart News has since turned his attention to Europe, establishing relationships with like-minded European political groups. This is not just an extremist fringe. Populist, anti-establishment, anti-immigrant parties now have a measure of power in Poland, Italy and Hungary. Bannon is in the process of setting up an umbrella group, called "The Movement," with a headquarters in Brussels to help support and coordinate these different nationalist parties. One of the people helping him is his friend, Benjamin Harnwell. Harnwell founded and leads the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative Catholic group based in Rome whose mission is to help Christian politicians to defend their values in the public space.
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