Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon says the Trump “insurgent movement” is making a better Senate majority leader out of Sen. Mitch McConnell.
”Since we started puttting pressure on them, this kind of insurgent movement… all of a sudden Mitch McConnell’s picking up his game.”
As The Hill reports, Bannon made the comments on a Sunday radio broadcast with host John Catsimatidis.
Bannon cited McConnell as part of the problem within the Republican Party because the Kentucky senator didn’t support Donald Trump as a candidate and was modestly supportive of Trump’s legislative ambitions when he became president.
But he says he noticed a change of attitude lately, especially when it comes to getting behind Trump’s judicial nominees and tax reform policy.
“Now that he’s afraid, now that he sees that the grass-roots movement — whether it’s in Alabama or Arizona or Tennessee or Mississippi — is going to replace his cronies like [Sen.] Jeff Flake and [Sen.] Bob Corker, now he’s scared, and now he’s trying to move more federal judges through the system and really trying to cleave to President Trump’s plan,” Bannon told Catsimatidis.
Bannon, who departed the White House to resume his duties at Breitbart, has accelerated his campaign against the Republican establishment and hasn’t spared McConnell, suggesting the senator move along and make way for a less obstructive majority leader.
Bannon’s latest effort is to find more populist Republican candidates for the 2018 midterm elections. He has also been a loyal and vocal supporter of Roy Moore, the embattled Republican candidate for Senate from Alabama who continues to be at the center of a sexual misconduct scandal.
