Trump Names Steve Bannon as Co-Equal of Priebus
Nov 15, 2016 by Bob Adelmann
Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that he was naming Reince Priebus as his chief of staff and Steve Bannon (shown) as his chief political advisor generated outrage from the Left and the Right. While the Right accused Trump of selling out his principles by installing longtime Republican stalwart Reince Priebus as his personal gatekeeper, most of the Left’s outrage was focused on Bannon, who has made it his life’s mission to oppose and expose the establishment’s control of the media and the political process in general.
Those who know him, however, have a vastly different and more favorable view of the man.
Running Breitbart News ever since its founder, Andrew Breitbart, died in 2012, Bannon has tapped into, and augmented, an increasing number of citizens’ distaste of and outrage against the establishment. More than 40 million people view his website every month, pushing its Alexa ratings close to the top worldwide.
In March, Lloyd Grove of the liberal, far-left Daily Beast described Breitbart’s, and thus Bannon’s, impact on the movement referred to as “alt-right”:
[The Breitbart website is] Trump-friendly [and] regularly savages the GOP establishment, the media elite, the Washington consultant class, and the Fox News Channel.
This was intentional from the start. Said Bannon in January: “We think of ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly anti the permanent political class.”
He didn’t start out that way. Born into a poor family in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1953, Bannon grew up close to the naval yard and upon graduating from Virginia Tech in 1976, joined the Navy. He served in the Pacific Fleet for four years, and when he returned, he served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon. He explains: “I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats.”
But his service in Washington led to a change of heart: “I wasn’t political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter [messed] things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. I still am.”
But during a time when his investment company was operating various media companies in Asia, he learned how little difference there was between Republicans and Democrats. “But what turned me against the whole establishment,” he stated, “was coming back from running companies in Asia and seeing that Bush has [messed] up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster.”
When he left the navy, he attended Harvard Business School, receiving an MBA and a job offer at Goldman Sachs. He worked in their Mergers and Acquisitions Department for four years, making enough money to allow him and some colleagues to start a boutique investment company, Bannon & Co. When he negotiated the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner, he received a stake in five TV shows, including Seinfeld.
He got into films, making a Reagan documentary, In the Face of Evil. Its success led him to produce a documentary about Sarah Palin and films celebrating the Tea Party. His success with these led to an introduction to Andrew Breitbart, who was operating his startup business, Breitbart.tv. When Breitbart died of a heart attack in 2012, Bannon was invited to take over as CEO.
During his stint at Breitbart, the website exposed the ACORN scandal and later the Weiner sexting scandal, among others. Bannon also founded the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), which produced the films Bush Bucks: How Public Service and Corporations Helped Make Jeb Rich, and Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. These were carefully researched and crafted films according to Bloomberg Businessweek, which called them “rigorous, fact-based indictments against major politicians.”
Bannon had, through the years, become close with Trump, and when Trump announced his candidacy for the president, Bannon became a vocal supporter through Breitbart. In August he was invited to join Trump’s campaign staff, replacing Paul Mannafort as campaign manager. One of Trump’s campaign staffers told Yahoo News:
I mean, the guy clearly knows how to get things going, how to get a message going, and how to push that and layer it so those things are going to take root … that [it’s] something people are going to like.
I mean, clearly, that’s how he’s built Breitbart and how he acts on the morning calls for the campaign. When we’re talking about messages, he’ll say, “Let’s jump on this story.… Let’s start talking about this. It’s going to be huge and we’ve got to go big on it.”
Under attack by far-left members of the media such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and others, Bannon’s supporters have closed ranks behind him. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, stated, “I’ve worked very closely with Steve Bannon. He’s been the general of this campaign. And frankly, people should look at his full résumé. He has got a Harvard business degree. He’s a naval officer. He has had success in entertainment.”
His “co-equal” in the new Trump administration, Reince Preibus, concurs: “I’ve spent a lot of time with him. And here’s a guy who’s a Harvard Business School [graduate], a London School of Economics [graduate], a 10-year naval officer advising admirals. He was a force for good on the campaign at every level that I saw, all the time.”
Time will tell how the “co-equal” partnership will work out. At the moment, Priebus will be Trump’s administrator while Bannon will be his advisor on content and strategy. Call it “quiet” versus “confrontational.”
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.
Related article:
Trump Names RNC Chair as Chief of Staff
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/24635-trump-names-steve-bannon-as-co-equal-of-priebus
Team Trump: Steve Bannon Critics ‘Bitter’ After Losing the Election
16 Nov 2016 by Charlie Spiering
Donald Trump’s campaign dismissed accusations that Stephen K. Bannon is a white supremacist and an anti-Semite on Wednesday morning, suggesting that critics are simply upset that they lost the election.
“That’s just folks that are bitter the election’s over,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said to reporters at Trump Tower on Wednesday. “They didn’t get the result that they wanted.”
Miller defended Bannon as someone who had “very high character” who also expressed a commitment to diversity and inclusiveness.
“I think he’ll do a great job working with chief of staff Reince Priebus … to implement President-elect Trump’s vision,” Miller said.
On Tuesday, retiring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid demanded on the Senate floor that Trump fire Bannon immediately.
“Rescind it. Don’t do it. Think about this. Don’t do it,” Reid pleaded, adding: “Instead of hiding behind your Twitter account, and show America that racism, bullying, and bigotry have no place in the White House or in America.”
Miller pushed back against reports by the New York Times and other media outlets that the transition was in disarray, asserting that the transition team was taking a “very structured methodical approach.”
“We’re going to make sure we get it right,” he said.
He reminded reporters that Obama didn’t announce his first cabinet position until late November, after winning in 2008.
Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway agreed, speaking to reporters at Trump tower just moments later.
“You don’t form a federal government overnight and these are very serious issues, very serious appointments, very serious considerations,” she said. “It’s not the kind of thing to rush through.”
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/11/16/team-trump-steve-bannon-critics-bitter-losing-election/
Laura Ingraham: Steve Bannon Ran Campaign ‘That Beat The Clintons, The Obamas, And The Bushes’
16 Nov 2016 by Katie McHugh
On Monday’s On The Record with host Tucker Carlson, conservative radio host and author Laura Ingraham said she would “seriously consider” becoming President-Elect Donald Trump’s press secretary if offered the position and defended chief strategist Steve Bannon against the media smear campaign.
Asked if she would take the position of White House press secretary if offered the position, Ingraham said she may.
“I have my company, Lifezette, radio, Fox. I write a bunch of books. It’s a big decision, but I’m at the point where if my country needs me and if I can do something to actually, you know, advance the Trump agenda which is stuff I have written about now for 15 years, trade, immigration and renewing America, then I obviously have to seriously consider that.”
Carlson asked if rumored hawkish Cabinet picks would signal a change in the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
“So you can learn a lot about how one plans to govern by the way that he hires,” Carlson said. “Early in this race, Donald Trump laid down a marker on foreign policy against the Iraq War and foreign adventurism in general, and a lot of the neocons in Washington didn’t like it—at all. And still don’t like it. I am reading now that John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani are under consideration for Secretary of State. I like them very much. They are very smart. They are on the other side of this debate. What does this tell you about where Trump intends to?”
Ingraham said Trump’s agenda will more closely resemble former President Ronald Reagan’s policies than George W. Bush’s.
“I think Trump’s agenda is going to be Trump’s agenda. If you go into the Trump administration, you are not going to be pushing someone else. Economic renewal and pragmatic foreign policy,” Ingraham replied. “I think closer to Reagan than to George W. Bush. Peace through strength. Rebuilding this economy. Sending a strong message to our adversaries and our allies that we take care of business at home. We honor our commitments to our allies. But, let’s face it—if Americans don’t have faith that the economic system here is going to work for them, then we’re going to have a lot of semantic debates about American intervention around the world. So I think—Trump made that clear during the campaign that we have got to get this country going again, to make sure our military and men and women in uniform are properly cared for and do all that it’s a lot to do.
“But, you know, it’s not 1985. We don’t—we have $20 trillion in debt and we have to be very honest with ourselves and with our allies and our adversaries about what’s possible,” she added.
Asked if she felt former Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon’s appointment as chief strategist was a “divisive,” Ingraham firmly said no.
“No. You you know what I’m concerned about?” she said. “People on the outside of this administration are going to try to blunt the effectiveness of the Trump team.”
“Bannon. Kellyanne. Steve Miller. Dave Bossie. And, I think, Reince Priebus all together ran a really successful operation that beat the Clintons, the Obamas, and the Bushes,” she continued. “Media, Hollywood, academia. All of them. The entire U.S. press corps.”
“That core group of people are stellar, and they did a stellar job. Stellar job,” she added.
“The smear campaign going on about Steve Bannon—I have been around Washington for a long time. I don’t like these smear campaigns. Unfair. People are tired of them,” Ingraham said. “He is a very smart person. He built a media company with an idea… I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I get it. I understand that. I think people should take a breath, give him a chance. He’s a really good person and really smart.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/16/laura-ingraham-steve-bannon-ran-campaign-that-beat-the-clintons-the-obamas-and-the-bushes/
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