In a blistering assault on the Republican
establishment and President Donald Trump’s political adversaries, former
White House advisor Steve Bannon predicted there will be an effort to
impeach the president if Republicans lose the House.
“Donald Trump is a blunt force instrument,” Bannon said.
In a wide-ranging speech that touched on the rise of
China, the dangers of Turkish President Recep Erdoğan and the threat
from radical Islamic terrorism, the controversial political advisor said
he thinks Trump’s opponents simply are working to throw him out of
office.
“When I left the White House the very first thing I
said is that I’m going after the Republican establishment, because they
are trying to nullify this as much as the left.”
He warned that the political battle will play out through next year.
“The constitutional struggle that we are going to have
in 2018 and the lead up to it, is going to be brutal, a brutal midterm
election. It is going to be something unprecedented in American
history,” Bannon predicted.
“If we get crushed, the first thing that they are going
to do in the House of Representatives, they are going to impeach Donald
J. Trump, I don’t care what they say.”
Bannon spoke at a New York City luncheon event
sponsored by the Gatestone Institute, a “non-partisan, not for profit
international policy council and think tank, dedicated to educating the
public about what the media fails to report,” it says.
“Mr. Bannon seems concerned about international threats
facing America,” said Gatestone’s President Nina Rosenwald, who invited
him as part of the group’s fall lecture series. “We thought he might
bring up topics that need addressing that nobody else is looking at.”
“We have the ability to put together a coalition that
can govern for 50 years,” Bannon told the audience, but warned of a
potential G.O.P. defeat because he believes that the ruling-party powers
are not connected to average Americans.
“The establishment is not prepared, they don’t have a
sense of urgency, and they don’t understand the working class people in
Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Minnesota and in Iowa and
Ohio. What we did we can replicate. We can replicate it, though, with
hard work, and wisdom. And if we blow this, we are never going to get it
back. You have to understand, it is never coming back. We have the
ability to change this country.”
Bannon, who is supporting some insurgent candidates in
upcoming Republican primaries, did not delve into the growing sexual
misconduct allegations surrounding Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Bannon supported Moore over President Trump’s primary pick, the
incumbent Senator Luther Strange, and only mentioned the controversy
briefly. He cited it as an example of what he considers the
establishment’s panic.
“They’re petrified of the opposition party. You know
what my super power is? I don’t give a damn. I could care less what they
say about me. I could care less. It’s about action. The Republican
Party and the leaders of the Republican Party are cowards. You are
writing your checks to cowards. Understand this. They are there for you
when it’s easy. They are there to take your check. But when something
comes up like the Iran situation, they will flip the Constitution of the
United States so they can have some sort of conscience for voting for
that — it’s outrageous.”
He said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
“owes his job to Donald Trump,” noting that it was Trump’s wins that
swept the G.O.P. into the Senate majority.
“Wisconsin, Missouri and North Carolina were all dead
in the water. They were brought across the goal line by Donald Trump.
Mitch McConnell had a terrible track record of picking people to run.”
Bannon also used his Gatestone appearance to remind the
attendees of the Trump administration success against ISIS, both on the
battlefield and squeezing the financial pipeline that supports
terrorism.
“We crushed the Caliphate of ISIS ... in 2014, the ISIS
Caliphate was eight million people. It had oil fields, it had wheat
fields, it had taxation, and was recruiting actively in Europe and
recruiting actively in the United States. He has physically destroyed
the Caliphate. If you listen to the morning talk shows, you would think
that all President Trump is doing is just following Obama’s plan. It
couldn’t be farther from the truth. He told General Mattis, not a war of
attrition, I want a war of annihilation. I want to physically destroy
the Caliphate in Mosul, in Raqqa and other cities. He’s done that, and I
don’t think he’s gotten the credit.”
“The region is starting to clean up the element in the
region that works with, supports and finances exporting radical Islamic
terrorism to Western Europe and the United States.”
He also warned that the U.S. has to face Iranian expansion in the Middle East.