Steve Bannon, Unrepentant

White House adviser Stephen Bannon called Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect to discuss his article on China but apparently didn’t realize the entire conversation was on the record.

Among the highlights:

• He admitted he was fighting with colleagues: “That’s a fight I fight every day here. We’re still fighting. There’s Treasury and Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying… We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s like, every day.”
• He undercut the president’s threats on North Korea: “There’s no military solution, forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”
• He explained his strategy towards race: “The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
• On white nationalists: “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more. These guys are a collection of clowns.”

Jonathan Swan: “The piece gives Bannon’s enemies ammunition at a time he’s extraordinarily vulnerable. They’ve been saying he’s a leaker, a self-promoter, ‘President Bannon,’ etc. This interview plays right into their hands.”