MAGA mainstay Steve Bannon doesn’t believe he’s got the right soldiers for his fight, and if he could recruit some new ones he’d look for people more like Democrats.
In Bannon’s view, it’s Democrats who are the powerful force having their way in Washington, while Republicans struggle to make a mark. Bannon again calls out James Comer and Jim Jordan — and the work of the House Oversight Committee, which Comer chairs — saying (not for the first time) that these guys aren’t “killers” — they’re just “performative.”
“Once again, a couple of not particularly bright guys – Comer and Jordan – nice guys … but we need killers. And their staffs have to be killers. You don’t have killers. The Democrats have killers,” Bannon told his audience, as Ron Filipkowski reports. “Look how [the Democrats] are coming after Trump. They’re thinking up everything in the world. They got 91 indictments and they’re gonna add a couple more!”
Democrats who’ve been wringing their hands over GOP threats to impeach the President and shut down the government all while blocking critical appointments in the military may be dumbfounded by Bannon’s portrayal of a feckless and impotent GOP, which he describes as “gutless, gormless” and lacking “courage.”
Those Democrats may also be surprised to hear themselves characterized as the party that has the “killers” — the kind of pragmatic political operatives that really get things done. In Bannon’s parlance, that’s the ultimate compliment. He gave it to the Democrats for their work against Trump.
Bannon was addressing the so far unsuccessful attempt by Republicans to portray Joe Biden as Trump’s equal in alleged criminal pursuits. And he was reacting to news that Speaker McCarthy had resorted to profanity to describe his frustration — a show of anger, sure, Bannon concedes, but that isn’t fisticuffs, which would please him more. Bannon wants “killers.”
To McCarthy he says: ‘”Stand up and be a man! Own the room. Big talk in front of your conference dropping the F-bombs.”
While Democrats will be pleased to learn they have, in Bannon’s estimation, the upper hand and the “killers” on their side, they must also note the reliability of the source — Bannon’s podcast was the subject of this February New York Times headline: Steve Bannon’s Podcast Is Top Misinformation Spreader, Study Says.
(The study, by the Brookings Institution, concluded that “10 prominent podcasters were responsible for sharing the majority of false and misleading content” with Bannon leading the way.)
Bannon has long been a no-hold-barred critic, even going after Donald Trump for strategic mistakes he sees the former President making. In December Bannon tried to drop some truth, as he saw it, on Trump’s positioning, saying: “The president and Mar-a-Lago, you’ve got to get the game up. You’ve got to get better. It’s just not good enough right now. I hate to be so brutally frank, but we’re fighting for the country.”
Bannon advised the President to get off of Truth Social and address the issues. Trump stayed on the platform and increased his lead in the GOP primary race.
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