The man who whispers in President Donald Trump‘s ear has a message for members of the media: SHUT UP.
That would be Steve Bannon, Trump’s senior strategist, who didn’t really care for the so-called “mainstream media” before taking over the campaign in August and landing the cushy White House gig.
In a New York Times story published Thursday, Bannon, who doesn’t typically talk to the press or answer his cell phone, said the media needs to do nothing right about now: “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” he told a reporter during a phone interview.
He repeatedly called the media the “opposition party” and said they still “don’t understand this country.”
Bannon has so far hired two reporters — Sebastian Gorka and Julia Hahn — from Breitbart News, the right-wing website he headed up before climbing his way into Trump’s lap. This may be a good time to remind the world that Breitbart news reportedly charged a tea party group thousands of dollars to cover its Texas rally — a move largely unheard of in journalism. At the time, neither Bannon nor his then-spokesman Kurt Bardella would comment on the matter. But they never denied it happened.
Bannon wasn’t far behind Trump in trashing the media. At a GOP House retreat in Philly, Trump took a moment to bash the media, saying, “There is nothing fair about the media.”
Of course that doesn’t stop Trump from giving media interviews, such as the lengthy one he gave to ABC’s David Muir which aired Wednesday night and what promises to be the world’s easiest interview with FNC’s Sean Hannity Thursday night.
Bannon spoke down to NYT Michael Grynbaum, telling him that reporters who got the election wrong is a “humiliating defeat that will never wash away.”
He said, “That’s why you have no power. You were humiliated.”
Double, triple ouch.