Bannon: Republican Establishment and Media Launched a ‘Weaponized Hit on Judge Moore’

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks at the Macomb
AP/Paul Sancya

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon discussed the allegations of molesting an underage girl leveled against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily. Bannon agreed with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow that Moore is the target of a “coordinated hit” by Democrats, the media, and Establishment Republicans.

“Even Chuck Todd, the swampiest creature of swamp creatures, he walked through it yesterday on Meet the Press. He said it felt completely orchestrated,” Bannon pointed out, prompting Marlow to play a clip of those remarks from Todd.

“You ought to play that clip 20 times between now and the end of the show,” Bannon advised Marlow. “Chuck Todd laid it out. Within an hour – I think it was within 57 minutes, one of the things I found most surprising, all of a sudden on my BlackBerry with the comms alert, it was like 57 minutes and then bang, bang, bang, one after the other.”

“You’re going to find out that what happened down there was Republican operatives had this information or were concocting some of this information, working with the Washington Post, who is lying about this. Working with the Washington Post, who also had contacts with McConnell and these guys to drop this weaponized hit on Judge Moore, and then bang, bang, bang, hit it right away with all of McConnell’s lackeys,” he charged.

“Here’s the thing: lately they jump out and say ‘hey, they’re going to lose this seat.’ Remember, they would rather lose a seat in the United States Senate than keep their own power and control in the Republican Party,” he contended.

“This is just another desperate attempt by Mitch McConnell to keep power, and it’s not going to work. You know, people in Alabama see through this. The good folks of Alabama are going to be able to weigh and measure this. Plenty of time to weigh and measure this, and to come to a conclusion, an independent conclusion, which the folks down there are obviously capable of doing. But this is an orchestrated hit from the Uniparty,” said Bannon.

Marlow cited a man-on-the-street report from an Alabama affiliate of ABC News that was unable to find anyone who believed the charges against Moore, and his own difficulty in finding callers for Breitbart News Daily who believed them, to suggest the credibility of the Washington Post is low with many voters.

“You know why? Because folks are coached up now,” Bannon said. “In the old days, they would have bit on the hook, and the mainstream media would have had their way. Folks are coached up. Here’s the great thing about the Internet, and places like Breitbart and others – and this is why we’re so grateful we have this partnership with SiriusXM, that we’ve got this great radio platform, because radio and the Internet go right together – is that you can’t fool people anymore. The information can get out there. People will make their own judgment.”

Bannon described the Breitbart News Daily model as presenting the facts and allowing the audience to form their own opinions, producing a caller-driven radio show. “That’s what you’re seeing in Alabama,” he said. “I thought the ABC thing was a complete heckle on the Washington Post.

Marlow hypothesized that many potentially excellent candidates are intimidated out of entering politics, especially on the Republican side, by the threat of savage personal attacks in the media.

“They’re out to destroy you,” Bannon agreed.

He recalled his experience at speaking to the Zionist Organization of America’s annual gala on Sunday. “People I admire, admire a lot, and a couple of them I’m really friendly with, who talked about moderation and wanting to be moderate voices, and it’s time to bring both sides together and to listen – I got up there and I said, ‘Look, I love moderates, they’re fantastic. I particularly love people on the Right who want to moderate and reach out and everything like that.’ I said, ‘That’s not me. I’m a fighter.’”

“I said this last night with the state of Israel, how on Capitol Hill there’s an anti-Israel, and throughout the country you start to see anti-Semitism on college campuses. It’s time to be a fighter and a honey badger, not a moderate. We’re going to have to fight our way through this thing. And for people out there who are thinking of running, we encourage everybody to engage, understand they’re going to try to destroy you,” he said.

“It’s just like the Donald Trump campaign. They’re not there to debate the topics. They don’t want to talk about immigration. They don’t want to talk about DACA. They don’t want to talk about the Gulf, the Middle East. They don’t want to talk about Korea and China. What they want to do is tear you down,” Bannon warned.

“It’s amazing. Where’s the outrage and the firestorm about what Bill Clinton – a known sexual predator, right? – where’s the firestorm? You haven’t really even seen a firestorm over these accusations on some of these other guys in the Hollywood industry. I mean, there’s been victims coming forward, but it hasn’t been the vicious tear-down you’ve seen on Judge Moore,” he asserted.

Marlow asked if Establishment Republicans have condemned Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s role as his enabler, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, or Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein for their improprieties with anything like their swift and intense condemnations of Moore for events that occurred some 40 years ago.

“If they did, I missed it. I totally missed it,” Bannon deadpanned. “By the way, I throw the White House staff in there. The White House staff ought to understand something: this is what they tried to do to President Trump. And they’re going to try to come back on President Trump. The White House staff has got to savvy up over there. They’re going to try to turn this back on President Trump, you watch. The White House staff has got to get a lot savvier. They’re just playing into the hands of the opposition party. Some of the comments over the weekend are very disturbing.”

“This is about the good folks in Alabama who have plenty of common sense, and plenty of judgment, they’ll be able to weigh and measure all of the facts and come to a conclusion,” he stressed.

“One thing I do want to say about going back, what, 40 years on Judge Moore – one thing we’re going to start going through is Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell has got some controversial things that we haven’t brought to light, that we’ve been kind of looking at,” he added. “Mitch McConnell was in the Army, but he wasn’t in the Army that long. There’s a lot of controversy about why Mitch McConnell got rolled out of the Army. We’ve been doing some investigating, I guess you would say, into Brother McConnell’s earlier life. It’ll be interesting. I guess that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

“This was a Republican operative hit on Judge Moore,” Bannon declared. “The facts will be coming out over the next couple of days that this is a Republican operative hit from some of the usual suspects. I think it’s time to have a frank conversation, I think it’s time for the grassroots to have a frank conversation about, ‘Do you want to be associated with these people?’”

“This shows you with all the stuff that came out with Judge Moore initially – oh, we’re going to lose the seat, it’s going to be 51-49 – understand something: they would rather be in the minority and control the Republican apparatus. Why would they want to do that? Because they can suck out a lot of money. Even in the minority, they can suck out a lot of money. It’s a business model. This has nothing to do with representing your interests. This has nothing to do with helping the country. This has nothing to do with your children and grandchildren. This has to do with lining their pockets,” he said.

“And by the way, we’re also going through a very systematic review of how these guys make their money. All of this is going to come out in time. In the age of the Internet, you can’t hide anything. It’s one of the great powers of the Internet. It’s disintermediated the old legacy media. Alex, I’ve got to tell you, it’s going to be quite interesting between now and December 12th. There’s a lot of wood to chop,” he promised.

Bannon quoted from an interview given by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the weekend in which he laughed at the statement “Bannon has got a target on your back.”

“As my mother used to tell me, he who laughs best laughs last,” Bannon said.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.

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