Steven Bannon, Sometimes Referred To As 'President Bannon', in Rare Remarks: Trump Is 'Maniacally Focused' on Fulfilling Campaign Promises. Steve Bannon says media 'always wrong' about Trump
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon joined Matt Schlapp in a panel discussion at CPAC 2017.
In rare public remarks, Bannon said that Trump very clearly laid out that agenda in his campaign rallies and speeches.
"He's laid out an agenda with those speeches, with the promises he made. And our job everyday is just to execute on that," Bannon said. "And he's maniacally focused on that."
Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart News, said the mainstream media was dead wrong about the alleged chaos of the Trump campaign and transition. He said they are also dead wrong about what's going on in the White House and how Trump is methodically following through on his promises to the American people.
Bannon added that it's going to be a fight every single day for President Trump, his team and his supporters because the media's attacks will only increase.
"They're corporatist, globalist media," Bannon said. "They're adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has."
He said the media is going to get worse and worse as Trump continues to press his agenda.
"If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken."
Priebus said President Donald Trump has brought together the Republican Party and the conservative movement, and now he's focused on implementing his agenda.
Bannon ended by calling on the crowd to "have our back" and "more importantly ... [to] hold us accountable for delivering on what we promised."
Steve Bannon’s not-so-subtle threat to the media
It's no secret that Steve Bannon, the past chairman of Breitbart News and now a senior strategist to the president, is behind much of Trump's anti-media rhetoric. The idea of the media as the “opposition party” or the “enemy" — two phrases Trump has used of late to describe those who cover him — is pure Bannon.
So, there was no reason to think that Bannon was going to be anything but confrontational with the media during a joint appearance with Trump White House chief of staff Reince Priebus at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon.
But, even by Bannon's standards, he seemed to ramp up his attacks on the media and offer a very clear message to political journalists: You think this is bad? Just wait.
“It's going to get worse every day for the media,” Bannon said, insisting that the “corporatist” media would continue to see Trump pursue exactly the sort of economic nationalism that journalism allegedly despises. Then he added this call to arms: “If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you're sadly mistaken.”
The message from Bannon was unmistakable: The enemy of Donald Trump and those who think like him is not, really, Democrats but, in actuality, the media. And the only way to combat the media is to fight like hell against them on everything and anything.
As I've noted before, presidents (and their staffs) always have an adversarial relationship with the press. The administration insists the press isn't telling the story of the White House right. The press complains about a lack of access to the key players in the White House. It's been that way for as long as I can remember.
But what Bannon and, by extension, Trump are up to is something very different than simply an adversarial working relationship with the media. Bannon doesn't want to change the media. He wants to totally dismantle the media. He wants to break its back and leave it for dead by the side of the road. And, he's not afraid of telling the media to their faces about that plan.
That was the message Bannon wanted to get across at CPAC. That Trump — and he — would never back down. That the perceived scorn of the so-called “mainstream media” only made him more convinced that the course Trump is taking is right. And that things are going to get plenty worse for the media over the next four years.
It's a remarkable declaration of all-out war on the media from one of the most powerful people in the Trump White House.
The Opposition Party is ‘Always Wrong’: Steve Bannon Slams the Media During CPAC Panel
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Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus are holding a joint appearance today at CPAC, and Bannon began the discussion by taking shots at the political press about how much it gets wrong.
Bannon doesn’t make a lot of direct media appearances, but for weeks, the White House strategic adviser has been slamming the media by saying it should be treated like the “opposition party.” ACU chairman Matt Schlapp asked Priebus and Bannon for thoughts about the media’s reporting, and Priebus expressed frustration with articles suggesting he and Bannon have a hostile relationship with each other.