11-14-2016, 02:47 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-14-2016, 02:48 PM by Eric the Green.)
Trump faces backlash over appointing Bannon as a top aide, a choice critics say will empower white nationalists
By Elise Viebeck, Katie Zezima and Jerry Markon November 14 at 1:54 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powe...ionalists/
President-elect Donald Trump faces a growing backlash against his decision to name campaign chairman and former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist at the White House, a choice critics say will empower white nationalists.
A chorus of advocacy groups, commentators and congressional Democrats denounced Bannon as a proponent of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic views as Trump began his first full week as president-elect. Trump named Bannon his chief strategist and senior counselor on Sunday while also appointing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to be his chief of staff.
“President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House,” Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said in a statement Sunday night. “It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide. Bannon was ‘the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill,’ according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
[Donald Trump plans to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants]
The statement echoed sentiments from leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, other Capitol Hill Democrats and some Republican Trump critics such as Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who tweeted, “Is there precedent for such a disreputable & unstable extremist in [White House] senior ranks before Bannon?”
A spokesman for Trump accused critics and the media of trying to “divide people” following the election when they raise questions about Bannon’s views and history.
Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump presidential transition, said Monday morning that Bannon has done a “fantastic job” since joining Trump’s inner circle.
“If you’ve seen the president-elect since the election, he’s taken a very measured tone,” Miller said in an interview with CNN’s “New Day.”
Kellyanne Conway, who worked closely with Bannon as Trump’s campaign manager, also defended him.
“He’s been the general of this campaign,” Conway told reporters as she arrived Monday at Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet with the president-elect. Citing Bannon’s résumé as a former naval officer and Goldman Sachs executive, she called him a “brilliant tactician.”
Asked whether Bannon needed to explain his connections to the alt-right movement, Conway said: “I’m personally offended that you think I would manage a campaign where that would be one of the going philosophies. It was not — 56 million-plus Americans or so saw something else. . . . You should really focus on the will of the people, which was to elect Donald Trump the president.”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) sought to calm the fears many Americans still hold about Trump’s election, which has been greeted by widespread protests.
“There is a lot of hysteria and hyperbole,” Ryan said during an interview Monday with his hometown radio station, 1380 Big AM. “I would tell people to just relax — things are going to be fine.
Trump’s naming of Bannon and Priebus set up what could be a battle within the White House between the populist, outsider forces that propelled his winning campaign and the party establishment that dominates Washington.
By Elise Viebeck, Katie Zezima and Jerry Markon November 14 at 1:54 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powe...ionalists/
President-elect Donald Trump faces a growing backlash against his decision to name campaign chairman and former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist at the White House, a choice critics say will empower white nationalists.
A chorus of advocacy groups, commentators and congressional Democrats denounced Bannon as a proponent of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic views as Trump began his first full week as president-elect. Trump named Bannon his chief strategist and senior counselor on Sunday while also appointing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to be his chief of staff.
“President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House,” Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said in a statement Sunday night. “It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide. Bannon was ‘the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill,’ according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
[Donald Trump plans to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants]
The statement echoed sentiments from leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, other Capitol Hill Democrats and some Republican Trump critics such as Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who tweeted, “Is there precedent for such a disreputable & unstable extremist in [White House] senior ranks before Bannon?”
A spokesman for Trump accused critics and the media of trying to “divide people” following the election when they raise questions about Bannon’s views and history.
Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump presidential transition, said Monday morning that Bannon has done a “fantastic job” since joining Trump’s inner circle.
“If you’ve seen the president-elect since the election, he’s taken a very measured tone,” Miller said in an interview with CNN’s “New Day.”
Kellyanne Conway, who worked closely with Bannon as Trump’s campaign manager, also defended him.
“He’s been the general of this campaign,” Conway told reporters as she arrived Monday at Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet with the president-elect. Citing Bannon’s résumé as a former naval officer and Goldman Sachs executive, she called him a “brilliant tactician.”
Asked whether Bannon needed to explain his connections to the alt-right movement, Conway said: “I’m personally offended that you think I would manage a campaign where that would be one of the going philosophies. It was not — 56 million-plus Americans or so saw something else. . . . You should really focus on the will of the people, which was to elect Donald Trump the president.”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) sought to calm the fears many Americans still hold about Trump’s election, which has been greeted by widespread protests.
“There is a lot of hysteria and hyperbole,” Ryan said during an interview Monday with his hometown radio station, 1380 Big AM. “I would tell people to just relax — things are going to be fine.
Trump’s naming of Bannon and Priebus set up what could be a battle within the White House between the populist, outsider forces that propelled his winning campaign and the party establishment that dominates Washington.