Bannon hints Trump will smear Dems as 'jihadists and foreigners' in bizarre TV address
Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and intellectual avatar of the MAGA movement, offered a potential preview of the declassified intelligence reports purportedly showing foreign interference in elections that President Donald Trump is expected to discuss during his speech on Thursday.
Discussing an effort by John Solomon, a conservative journalist appointed to a White House task force attempting to uncover evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, Bannon predicted during his “War Room” podcast on Monday that there would be “revelations that get to the heart of the administrative state and the Deep State.”
Bannon went on to claim, without evidence, that Democratic Socialist-based congressional candidates who won primaries in New York and Colorado are tied to the Chinese Communist Party. He also absurdly compared left-leaning metropolitan regions, which he said “are controlled by Marxist jihadists and foreigners,” to John C. Calhoun, the antebellum senator whose nullification theory provided the intellectual foundation for the Confederacy and helped pave the way for the Civil War.
“You now have the nullification project in these cities with the John C. Calhouns of the DSA and the Working Families Party, and others, and their dark-money, offshore sponsors — people writing checks that are all Marxist, and some of them directly tied to the Chinese Communist Party,” Bannon said.
Bannon condemned a “corrupt Deep State” for alleged actions “to steal elections” and “to assist foreign entities” in purportedly meddling in U.S. elections. And while insisting that Democratic Socialist-backed congressional candidates shouldn’t be seated, Bannon acknowledged they are all but certain to win in their deep-blue districts, undercutting his innuendo that their elections will be marred by fraud.
Multiple lawsuits, along with state and federal investigations, uncovered no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.
David Becker, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney, told MSNOW that he doesn’t expect Trump to present evidence that would cause any serious reassessment when he speaks to the nation Thursday.
“I have no fear of anything being released,” he said. “We already know what happened in the 2020 election. That’s the most scrutinized election in world history. I do have a fear that the White House and the federal government have become perhaps the primary amplifier of disinformation that seeks to delegitimize American democracy in our election process.”
Bannon highlighted Solomon’s role as “special government employee for a couple hundred days heading up a task force to look into this,” while noting that acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte is overseeing the effort.
Trump is expected to be joined for his speech on Thursday by Pulte, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel.
The White House did not respond to questions from Raw Story about what evidence Trump might present to show foreign interference in elections.
Bannon addressed Blanche and Patel directly during his podcast, telling Blanche that if he wanted MAGA support for his Senate confirmation hearing, he had “better be on point on this.” To Patel, he said: “Here’s what we care about: Breaking the back of the government gangsters, breaking the back of the Deep State, perp-walking these people.
“We have to hit ’em — and hit ’em now,” Bannon added. “Expose them, but then take action to drive them out of our government and then to prosecute them. And then to either imprison or throw them out of the country. Let me repeat that: Either imprison them or throw them out of the country.”
Bannon also reprised a call for the Trump administration to deploy federal immigration enforcement agents at polling places during the midterm elections.
“We are not going to allow elections to be stolen, including this election in the midterms,” he said. “And that may require ICE agents showing up at the polling booth to make sure illegal aliens and other aliens can’t vote in American elections.”
Jessica Marsden, counsel and director of impact programs at Protect Democracy, said she fears that “Mullin could have Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conduct raids in heavily Democratic areas of Texas, Georgia or other swing states… which could drive down turnout by naturalized American citizens who fear arrest,” according to the MSNOW report.
The White House did not respond to an email seeking clarification on whether the administration intends to deploy federal immigration agents at polling places.