Steven Bannon
President Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon made it clear Monday night that his "war on the Republican establishment" is not a skirmish or a battle but a long-term campaign that could take decades.
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"To take your country back – it’s not going to happen in just one election. This is something you’re going to have to grind out day in and day out for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years," Bannon told the Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity.
"It took us a long time to get here. There’s no magic wand we can wave and drain the swamp. There’s no magic wand we can wave and blow up this establishment. I hate to tell people, you’re going to have to work," he added.
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"But you know what? The grit, determination and courage of the American working men and women – we are going to win."
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Bannon's current focus is to challenge Republican incumbents in the 2018 midterm elections who do not support the agenda President Trump ran on in 2016, which "backs the working men and women of this country."
Hannity brought up Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's financial support of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange in the special-election Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he became Trump's attorney general. Bannon and other anti-establishment conservatives backed the eventual winner, Judge Roy Moore, who will face the Democratic challenger in November.
Bannon told Hannity that major Republican donors now "are coming to us because they are tired of having their money burned up by trying to destroy people like Judge Moore."
"There’s a new game in town. We are to cut off the oxygen to Mitch McConnell," Bannon said. "Mitch McConnell’s biggest asset is the money. We’re going to make it the biggest liability. We are going after these guys tooth and nail."
As WND reported, when Bannon left the White House Aug. 18, he immediately returned to his role as executive chairman of Breitbart News and met with the chief funder of Breitbart, Robert Mercer, to prepare to “go to war” against “globalists” in the White House he believes are ruining the Trump administration.
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Hannity commented Monday night he was glad that Bannon was not going after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, noting the senator had argued Republicans under President Obama had the constitutional authority to block funding of Obamacare but was "betrayed" by his party.
Bannon, affirming Cruz as among the "good men," said, however, that even "safe incumbents" such as Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wy., and Deb Fischer, R-Neb., "have to understand something."
"Just voting is not good enough. You have to have a sense of urgency. Nobody’s safe. We are coming after all of them and we are going to win," he said.
