When he’s not too busy racking up “hours” of interviews with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller or celebrating Gary Cohn’s resignation from the White House by calling him a “globalist” (among other criticisms), Steve Bannon is stirring up the far-right members of France’s National Front. While addressing the ultra conservative political group at a gathering on Saturday, President Trump’s former campaign executive turned ex-White House chief strategist told his French audience to embrace being called “racists” by their critics. “Wear it as a badge of honor,” he declared.
Bannon made his sentiments quite clear while addressing the French-speaking crowd via a translator:
“Let them call you racists,” Bannon said to the French National Front Party. “Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.”
Bannon told the National Front crowd that he had learned from traveling the world that “history is on our side” and that “the globalists have no answers to freedom.”
Speaking of Cohn’s resignation from the White House, Bannon later gave reporters his take on the former economic adviser’s recent departure from Trump’s circle — as well as the increasing number of outgoing staffers. “I think President Trump has been pretty straightforward in saying, hey, when we first started, some of these advisers are what he would call globalists,” said Bannon. “He’s clearly pivoting to more economic nationalism.”
According to the New York Times, Bannon met with the National Front’s Marine Le Pen the same day as his remarks. He’s also expected to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose far-right, anti-immigrant political stance has aligned him with similar populist, nationalist movements. The ex-Breitbart head also floated the possibility that he would buy the troubled Newsweek outlet or United Press International with the intent of creating “scoop-driven and high-metabolism outlet ‘like Axios.'”
(Via CNN and New York Times)