NEW YORK CITY, New York — Bloomberg BusinessWeek national correspondent Josh Green, the author of a new number one bestselling book on Stephen K. Bannon, told Breitbart News Daily on Wednesday about the phone call he received from Bannon the morning after President Donald Trump won the election.
Green joined Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel for a radio special on his new book Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency. Green’s book explores Bannon’s history, his partnership with now President Trump, the roots of populist nationalism, and the culture around which Bannon helped propel Trump into the White House.
“The genesis of this book is basically, I woke up on election morning and Steve called me because we had prearranged a phone call win or loss and I was doing a big cover story for BusinessWeek—he was going to call me win or loss—he was going to call me and we were going to talk about what happened for my story,” Green said to open a 45-minute-long special in Bannon’s old studio at the SiriusXM Midtown Manhattan building on Sixth Avenue on Wednesday morning.
“I am willing to admit that I did not think Donald Trump was going to win—I had prewritten a story about how Hillary Clinton had won that I wound up tearing up at about 10 p.m. on election night,” Green continued with a laugh. After I noted in the interview that most people in the media—most of whom had pre-written similar stories—are not willing to admit that, Green joked: “I have no shame.”
“I tore it up and started writing ‘Trump Wins’ at about 10:03 p.m. on election night and to his credit Bannon followed through on his word and called me the next morning,” Green said. “We talked and he said ‘dude do you understand what happened?’ This is a scene in the book. He said ‘do you understand what happened?’ I said ‘what do you mean?’ He said ‘you guys’ Hillary Clinton and Democrats, ‘you guys,’ meaning me like in the mainstream media and the left, ‘you guys all missed it. You got so trapped in your own narrative about Hillary and how Donald Trump was unacceptable that you couldn’t see the forest through the trees. You didn’t get it.’ I put that in the piece and I thought about it and thought about it. The question I got as a political reporter and still get from everybody is ‘how on earth did this happen and nobody saw it coming?’ And, looking back, over my reporting over the last three or four or five years—and as you know, Matt, I’ve been writing about Breitbart and I’ve been writing about the rise of the populist right. As I looked back, you know, Bannon’s analysis was really the right one, that we just missed the story of the kind of the rise of the nationalist right forces. And that in turn caused us to miss Donald Trump. I thought that looking back I could tell the full story of Trump’s rise, of Bannon’s rise, of Breitbart’s influence, and weave those threads together in a way that provides the fullest explanation of how Trump became president.”
More from Green’s exclusive interview on Breitbart News Daily is forthcoming. His book is now the number one bestseller on Amazon.
LISTEN TO JOSH GREEN ON BREITBART NEWS DAILY ON SIRIUSXM PATRIOT CHANNEL 125:
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