Former President Donald Trump is completely comfortable with his role as a rallying figure for terrorists and insurrectionists, argued former GOP strategist Kurt Bardella on MSNBC's "The Beat" Friday.
This comes as a new book reveals longtime Trump strategist Steve Bannon is open that the former president chose to rally his campaign in Waco, Texas, in a nod to antigovernment extremists.
"So Kurt, in a different lifetime, you worked closely with Steve Bannon at Breitbart," said anchor Melissa Murray. "What's your take on Bannon's 'Trump-Davidian' comment? Is this just rhetoric? Or this is the real thing?"
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"It's 100 percent on brand," said Bardella. "This is a guy who openly boasted about his desire to effectively burn down our entire structure. This is a guy who calls himself a Leninist. It's par for the course. This is not surprising at all. Let's just be very clear for a second. These people, these people in jail [for the January 6 attack], they're not hostages. They're terrorists. They're domestic terrorists."
Trump has no shame about any of this, continued Bardella. On the contrary, he stands alongside the people responsible for the violence.
"The leader of the Republican Party, the person that's going to be the standard-bearer for this party, believes that domestic terrorists are actually hostages," Bardella continued.
"That's crazy," he added.
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