Remarks by President Bannon at CPAC
SCHLAPP: CPAC is known for having important moments, and I think it’s safe to say that this is one of those moments.
(APPLAUSE)
And I – I think the first thing that would be appropriate after 30 days of running a continual sprint is to thank these guys for what they’ve been doing.
(APPLAUSE)
PRESIDENT BANNON: And Matt, I want to thank you for finally inviting me to CPAC.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHLAPP: Yeah, there’s no –
PRESIDENT BANNON: Because I haven’t forgotten.
SCHLAPP: What was the name of the – the…
PRESIDENT BANNON: Believe it, you little turd. I have not forgotten.
(CLOUDS OF SULPHUR DRIFT THROUGH ROOM. SOUND OF DISTANT THUNDER IS HEARD)
SCHLAPP: Well. Well. Here’s what we decided to do at CPAC with the uninvited. We decided to say that everybody’s a part of our conservative family.
PRIEBUS: That’s right.
SCHLAPP: Even if they are flagrantly, unquestionably not conservative in any meaningful sense of the word. Even if their entire mission in life is to tear down everything our forefathers built, which is about as far from the dictionary definition of “conservative” as it’s possible to get.
PRESIDENT BANNON: (NODS)
SCHLAPP: Let me ask you two. We read a lot about you. But I bet not all of it’s accurate. I bet there’s some things that don’t get written correctly. Let me ask each one of you, what’s the biggest misconception about what’s going on in the Donald Trump White House?
PRIEBUS: Well, in regard to us two, I think the biggest misconception is everything that you’re reading.
(LAUGHTER)
We – we share an office suite together. We’re basically together from 6:30 in the morning until about 11:00 at night.
PRESIDENT BANNON: And everyone knows that people with outsized egos forced to share a small space never end up hating each other.
PRIEBUS: Right, never. Never.
PRESIDENT BANNON: Or spend all their time plotting over how best to stick knives in each others’ backs.
PRIEBUS: Right. Right.
And what Quote-Unquote “President” Trump showed, and let’s not kid ourselves, I mean I can talk about data and ground game and Steve can talk about big ideas, but the truth of the matter is Donald Trump – Quote-Unquote “President” Trump brought together the party and the conservative movement.
PRESIDENT BANNON: By grinding the conservative movement under the heel of his boot.
PRIEBUS: Right. And if the party and the conservative movement are together, similar to Steve and I, it can’t be stopped. And Quote-Unquote “President” Trump –
(APPLAUSE)
PRIEBUS: … was the one guy – it was Donald Trump that was able to bring this party and this movement together, by forcing everybody in the movement to lick his boots if they didn’t want to get shipped back home to Modesto or Sheboygan or wherever. And Steve and I know that and we live it every day.
PRESIDENT BANNON: You know, I think if you look at the opposition party and how they portray the campaign, and how they’re now portraying the administration, it’s always wrong. I mean, on – on the very first day that Kellyanne and I started, we reached out to Reince, Sean Spicer, Katie. It’s the same team that was grinding away on the campaign, and if you remember, the campaign was the most chaotic, most disorganized, most unprofessional shit show in the history of American politics –
(APPLAUSE)
PRESIDENT BANNON: … when – and the reason it worked – the reason it worked is Quote-Unquote “President” Trump. I mean, Trump had those ideas, had that energy, had that vision –
PRIEBUS: And the Russians.
PRESIDENT BANNON: Right, had the Russians. And had an opponent who was too busy taking orders from a computer to ever visit Wisconsin. And – and I think that is the power of this movement.
PRIEBUS: And on top of that – Quote-Unquote “President” Trump laid out his vision four or five years ago, here at CPAC.
PRESIDENT BANNON: That’s right.
PRIEBUS: And it was that vision – that under-informed, spittle-flecked, incomprehensible vision – it’s nothing different. If you go back and watch the tape of Quote-Unquote “President” Trump four or five years ago, that was the Trump agenda.
One of the things I used to say all the time – and Governor Walker and everyone gets sick of me saying it, but I think that Quote-Unquote “President” Trump found it – which is what this country, what all of us, were starving for the whole time because we’re so sick of politics and politicians. We were starving for somebody real, somebody genuine, somebody that was actually who he said he was. And we found it in a reality TV character who’s also a compulsive liar.
(APPLAUSE)
PRESIDENT BANNON: Yep. Yep.
Quote-Unquote “President” Trump, when he was running – it was all in the speeches. I happen to believe, and I think many others do, he’s probably the greatest public speaker in those large arenas since William Jennings Bryan.
SCHLAPP: Who was a buffoon and a racist too.
PRESIDENT BANNON: Right. And remember, we didn’t have money. We had a couple hundred million dollars, which is nothing. It was those rallies and those speeches, he laid out an agenda with those speeches for the promises he made. And he’s maniacally focused on that.
PRIEBUS: And on watching cable news to see if the people on the teevee finally like him.
PRESIDENT BANNON: Yep. He’s maniacally focused on two things: his agenda, and on getting the approval from the cable news people that he never got from his father.
PRIEBUS: And having petty arguments on Twitter.
PRESIDENT BANNON: Three! Three things… amongst the things he’s maniacally focused on are his agenda, and the faces on the teevee, and Twitter.
SCHLAPP: So, each one of you, tell me the one or two things that have happened in the last 30 days that you think are the most critical.
PRIEBUS: So, I mean, there’s a lot that’s happened… the first thing I think is Neil Gorsuch. Because Neil Gorsuch represents a conservative – represents the type of judge that has the vision of Donald Trump. Second thing, deregulation. And then, lastly, immigration: protecting the sovereignty of the United States, putting a wall on the southern border, throwing America’s entire air travel system into instant disarray with impulsive, poorly-thought-out executive orders. These are all things that Quote-Unquote “President” Trump is doing within 30 days.
SCHLAPP: Steve?
(APPLAUSE)
PRESIDENT BANNON: I think the same thing. I break it up into three verticals or three buckets. The first is kind of national security and sovereignty, and that’s your intelligence, the Defense Department, Homeland Security. The second is what I refer to as “economic nationalism”, and that is Wilbur Ross at Commerce, Steven Mnuchin at Treasury, Lighthizer at Trade, these people that are rethinking whether it makes sense to run an economy on actual economic principles or not. And the third, of course, is deconstruction of the administrative state, so we can get back to the good old days when corporations could sell you bread made entirely out of sawdust and dump toxic chemicals in your local school’s water fountains.
SCHLAPP: You know, we all – we all consume a lot of news –
PRESIDENT BANNON: You forgot the air quotes.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHLAPP: Oh, right. We all consume a lot of “news,” there’s been a great democratization in “news.” People get their news now from literally hundreds and thousands of sites. There are all these polls being put out again that say people think Donald Trump is doing a bad job. What is it they keep getting wrong? What does the media keep getting wrong about this Trump phenomenon?
PRIEBUS: Well, they’re not talking to the right people. I lived through it, as chairman of the party. It was maybe the summer of 2015, and the media was constantly pounding Quote-Unquote “President” Trump. But I went back to Kenosha and I talked to my neighbor and I said, “Bob, what do you think?” And he goes, “Man, I really love that Trump.”
(LAUGHTER)
PRIEBUS: And in the end it was 107,000 voters in three Midwestern states who made him President. Even though a huge majority of voters –
SCHLAPP: Millions!
PRIEBUS: – nearly three million more voters voted for the other candidate. So the pollsters should just limit themselves to talking to those 100,000 Midwestern white people. It’s pretty simple.
PRESIDENT BANNON: I’d like to expand on Reince’s point a bit. There is a globalist, corporatist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has. And what I want you to understand is that the people who are in those media organizations are not like you and me and the other good Americans who voted for Quote-Unquote “President” Trump. They’re dirty, big-lipped, hook-nosed. Their blood is not American blood. They’re not even people, really. They’re more like a virus, like a case of racial tuberculosis that has gotten sucked into America’s lungs. For real Americans to be healthy, they must be driven out, rooted out. They must perish according to their own law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
SCHLAPP: It’s really not that complicated, is it?
(APPLAUSE)
SCHLAPP: There are some parts of this, though, that are fitful. There’s probably people in this crowd that wouldn’t have been in this crowd before. Can this Trump movement be combined with what’s happening at CPAC and other conservative movements for 50 years? Can this be brought together?
PRESIDENT BANNON: You know, I’ve said that there’s a new political order that’s being formed out of this. And it’s still being formed. But if you look at the wide degree of opinions in this room, we have wide and sometimes divergent opinions. But I think we – the center core of what we believe, that raw power is its own justification. And I think that is what unites us and I think that is what is going to unite this movement going forward.
SCHLAPP: Absolutely.
So let me just ask as we – as we close this out. It’s time for – you know, you guys have been so sort of kumbaya here, it’s time for a little bit of a group hug.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHLAPP: So let me ask each of you. What is one thing you like the most about each other? Reince?
PRIEBUS: I love how many collars he wears. Interesting look. I never realized there were so many ways to accessorize a brown shirt.
(LAUGHTER)
PRESIDENT BANNON: The thing I respect most about Reince is that he’s always kind of steady, he’s got Katie and some other people around him, it’s very steady. It makes it really easy to figure out where he’s going and chuck a few grenades in that direction. Super easy.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHLAPP: Well it’s a great honor to have you both here.
(APPLAUSE)
SCHLAPP: Thanks for being here.
PRIEBUS: Thank you, Matt.
PRESIDENT BANNON: (VANISHES IN CLOUD OF SMOKE)