OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Steve Bannon, host of the popular “War Room: Pandemic” podcast and a former top political adviser to then-President Donald Trump, has a message for his old boss.
In his first interview following his indictment on Thursday, Bannon told another former Trump official, Sebastian Gorka on the latter’s daily radio program, that the 45th president should immediately declare his 2024 candidacy.
Earlier this week, Bannon was arrested in New York City on charges related to his involvement with the “We Build the Wall” project, which was founded in 2019 by Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who pleaded guilty to a number of charges including federal tax and wire fraud conspiracies. He is due to be sentenced in December and is facing 20 years in prison.
“What does President Trump’s former chief strategist want to say to him about what he needs to do in the next 60 days?” Gorka asked Bannon, Republic Brief reported.
“He needs to announce for president tomorrow morning. We got to put it out there. We don’t have time for games,” Bannon said Friday.
“No time for nonsense, you know we’re going to win sweeping victories on his agenda. We have to execute on that; he’s going to be the nominee. We don’t need a big long nomination fight. And by the way, we’re over the Never Trumper thing. We’re going to put that to bed. But we got to start laying at the agenda from day one,” he added, noting that promoting Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda again is key.
Asked about his arrest, Bannon called the timing suspicious, adding that the “timing is clear of what happened is all part and parcel of criminalizing, conservatives and their speech.”
“If there was one issue outside of the Navy, that was closest to your heart over the last six years, it was building the security border wall, so it is ridiculous that somehow you would, bilk Americans out of money to build the wall,” Gorka offered during the interview.
Bannon responded that it was hypocritical for New York Democratic prosecutors to charge him for raising money to put up security walls along the U.S.-Mexico border while the Democratic mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, is complaining about Texas and Arizona sending illegal migrants to the city.
“Adams has to go to the border to find out what the causes of the invasion are. It’s because he’s made New York a sanctuary city,” Bannon said, as reported by Republic Brief.
“We literally have thousands of these unauthorized aliens coming into the country right now who are a part of the 4.9 million nationwide because they won’t secure the border,” he continued, referencing an estimated number of migrants who have crossed illegally into the U.S. after President Joe Biden reversed most of Trump’s immigration and border security policies on his first day in office.
“Adams is going to open hotels to house all of these people and then New York social services are going to collapse,” he continued.
Bannon also said he traveled the country under the auspices of “We Build The Wall” to educate Americans about the project and the chaotic conditions along the border.
“We took an educational program all over the country every weekend to inform people to think of every town as a Border town because the consequences of open borders affect them and their families too. We went to Detroit, we went to Cincinnati, went to Arizona,” he told Gorka, according to the outlet.
“We did conferences at the wall to warn people of what we’re telling them now, that this situation is going to get out of control by 2022. It is so out of control now,” Bannon said before going on to address the midterm elections.
“The way we get these people to stop is by going to the polls on November 8. Everybody’s got to get out. You need to get everybody out. We need a sweeping fifty, fifty-seven people in the house,” Bannon said.
“We need to get the school board. Select all of them who need to win across the board and shatter the Democratic Party” he said, adding: “We also want President Trump to weigh in and declare his candidacy for President. Trump has an obligation here to win it.”
