Oxon Hill, Md.
Stephen Bannon, the White House chief strategist and intellectual force behind Trump’s agenda, used his first speaking appearance since Trump took office to vow that the president would honor all of the hard-line pledges of his campaign.
Appearing at a gathering of conservative activists alongside Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Bannon dismissed the idea that Trump might moderate his positions or seek consensus with political opponents. Rather, he said, the White House is digging in for a long period of conflict to transform Washington and upend the world order.
“If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken,” Bannon said in reference to the media and opposition forces. “Every day, it is going to be a fight.”
He continued, “And that is what I’m proudest about Donald Trump. All the opportunities he had to waver off this, all the people who have come to him and said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to moderate’ — every day in the Oval Office, he tells Reince and I, ‘I committed this to the American people, I promised this when I ran, and I’m going to deliver on this.’ ”
Bannon and Priebus shared the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference for 25 minutes in a buddy routine. They strived to prove that they are not rivals in Trump’s competing power circles, as has been reported, but rather partners working from 6:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. each day, often in the same office suite, to muscle through Trump’s desired changes.
Bannon framed much of Trump’s agenda with the phrase, “deconstruction of the administrative state,” meaning the system of taxes, regulations and trade pacts that the president says have stymied economic growth and infringed upon U.S. sovereignty. Bannon says that the post-World War II political and economic consensus is failing and should be replaced with a system that empowers ordinary people over coastal elites and international institutions.
At the core, Bannon said in his remarks, is a belief that “we’re a nation with an economy — not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders, but we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being.”
Bannon repeatedly used the phrase “economic nationalism” and posited that Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement was “one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history.”
Nigel Farage, the British politician who led the successful Brexit movement in the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, said in an interview at the conference that Bannon has the right vision to reorder world powers.
“I’ve never met anyone in my life who has such focus and is so clear in the direction that he intends to go in,” Farage said. “Steve is the person with an international perspective on all of this. He’s got a good feel for the direction that he wants to see across the West.”
Bannon’s language goes beyond Reagan-era Republican talking points about cutting regulations and lowering taxes. It also sidesteps key elements of the state that Trump has pledged to maintain or expand, such as the Defense Department, Medicare and Social Security, two huge federal entitlement programs.
Bannon used some terms that are more often uttered along the political left or mainstream, such as “globalist” and “corporatist.” Such words are rarely heard in a traditional Republican platform and underscore how Trump’s populism and suspicion of the world economy are in some respects similar to that of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist.
“They’re corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed — adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has,” Bannon said.
Yet some of the most powerful officials crafting Trump’s economic policies have deep roots in the global, corporate realm. Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross was a billionaire investor; Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was a hedge fund manager; and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn was president of Goldman Sachs, to cite three. And all are being tasked with carrying out an agenda that includes standard GOP fare, from cutting taxes for the wealthy to rolling back banking regulations.
Nonetheless, Bannon’s appearance at CPAC signaled a profound shift in the conservative movement’s center of gravity toward Trumpism.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, suggested during her appearance that by the time Trump addresses the group this morning, the conference would be known as “TPAC.”
Bannon and Priebus were interviewed jointly on stage by Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC. Priebus celebrated Trump’s administration as “the best Cabinet in the history of Cabinets,” and Bannon said that many nominees “were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”