Steve Bannon has fanned the flames of the burgeoning MAGA civil war by blasting Fox News, saying the network does not truly back President Donald Trump.
Trumpworld has been riven by schism over the Israel-Iran conflict, with two warring factions in disagreement over whether the U.S. should become involved. On one side, America-first isolationists want the president to stay true to his campaign promise not to drag the country into any foreign wars. Die-hards such as Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec are the town-cryers for this faction.
On the other side, pro-Israel interventionists like Laura Loomer and Fox News’ Mark Levin think Trump should steadfastly support the country in their efforts to quash Iran—and also say that’s what Trump ran on.
Bannon, the Trump whisperer who was axed in Aug. 2017 after clashing with other aides, planted his flag on his War Room podcast by saying that “we have to stop” any American involvement.
He also welcomed fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson onto the pod the same day. Carlson ranted for 45 minutes about his former colleagues, whom he labeled “warmongers” for their support of a U.S. intervention.
Bannon doubled down on this rhetoric Tuesday, saying that personalities at the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable network showed a lack of support for Trump after he “had the election stolen from him” in 2020, and thus, don’t truly deserve the title of “pure MAGA.”
“There’s an awful lot of people I notice right now saying how they’re true MAGA and they’re pure MAGA,” Bannon started his rebuke.
“I don’t think anybody at Fox can possibly be true MAGA and hardcore MAGA, and the reason is, to be brutally frank, when President Trump had the election stolen from him and had the White House taken away and he went back to Mar-a-Lago for that year of 2021, because everybody at Fox takes a paycheck from Murdoch, you all supported DeSantis and Nikki Haley and whoever else came along as an opportunity to replace President Trump,” he said.
He was referring to the network’s reported attempts to position Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the “future” of the Republican Party. It also called a Trump 2024 loss, because of the number of Republican voters who backed Nikki Haley in the primaries.
“So if you work at Fox by definition, you can’t be true MAGA, it’s impossible,” Bannon continued.
Fox News does not expressly claim to be pro-Trump or pro-MAGA, though much of its programming could be considered to fall into this bracket.
Additionally, the network did freely broadcast Trump’s bogus claims of election interference—so much so that they had to settle a court case with the voting machine company the network’s rhetoric implicated, Dominion Voting Systems, to the tune of $787 million.
“We were here, remember this audience, there was a couple of very lonely days, weeks and months before President Trump I think took to CPAC in Orlando and went back and gave that amazing speech that he was coming back and had thought it through in a month and a half, and we knew he would always come back,” Bannon continued.
“You had his back in the darkest days because you believe in President Trump.”
Bannon’s authority inside MAGA is widely acknowledged but his influence over Trump is more mercurial. After firing Bannon, Trump nicknamed him “Sloppy Steve” and claimed not to speak to him. But in more recent times Bannon’s powerful podcast has been a key influence on Republican primaries and the two have resumed more regular contact.
Fox News has been contacted for comment.
The post Bannon Fans Flames of MAGA Civil War by Attacking Fox News appeared first on The Daily Beast.
