This is a portion of what he had to say:
Contrary to Trump’s threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”
Actually that's not really crazy, not even a little bit.
But then the topic turned to Gyna. (No I did not misspell China, that is how these idiots pronounce it.):
“To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover.”
Bannon’s plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. “We’re going to run the tables on these guys. We’ve come to the conclusion that they’re in an economic war and they’re crushing us.”
But what about the folks in the State Department who are not on board with these aggressive tactics against Gyna?
Funny you should ask:
“Oh, they’re wetting themselves,” he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has big plans to marginalize their influence.
“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.”
But can Bannon really win that fight internally?
"That's a fight I fight every day here,” he said. “We’re still fighting. There’s Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying.”
“We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s like, every day.”
So much for Trump's assertion that everything is running smoothly in the White House.
And why is Bannon talking like HE'S the president? Wait, is HE the president?
To give Bannon a little credit he certainly came out harder against the protesters in Charlottesville than his boss ever did:
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: “Ethno-nationalism—it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”
“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.
Cannot argue with that last part. But then Bannon switched gears and went after the Democrats:
“The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
That sounds a little more like the Steve Bannon that we know, and loathe.
Well this should make for some awkward cabinet meetings in the White House for the next couple of days.
And didn't Bannon just essentially out himself as a White House leaker?
When the Mooch called up a reporter and started talking smack he was out the door in less than 24 hours.
Let's see how much longer Bannon holds onto his job.
