Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon is still dialling up his 2020 election-denying. But at CPAC he offered a new twist based on unfavourable articles that a certain paper of record wrote about US President Joe Biden.
“The New York Times is throwing Biden under the bus every day and backing ... up over him. That shows you they know he’s an illegitimate regime head,” Bannon said on Saturday. “He’s a usurper in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
To be clear, the Times has not asserted or implied that Biden was fraudulently elected. It has reported the opposite with vigour: that Trump’s claims were false.
However, the newspaper has reported on concerns over the 81-year-old president’s mental sharpness and published a recent editorial by Ross Douthat claiming that Biden should step aside in the race because he’s not up to the task of being president and running for it.
On Saturday at the conservative gathering just outside DC, Bannon told the mildly enthusiastic crowd that the next Republican administration will “adjudicate the fact that the 2020 election was stolen” and called for Biden and associates to be locked up.
He said the mission of Trump, the Republican frontrunner for 2024, was “to drive the vermin out of” the White House. He got even more personal. “Biden,” he said, “you and your crime family are nothing but trash.”
Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison for defying a subpoena to hand over related records to a House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, but has appealed. He recently made headlines for calling out House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican Louisana) , a fellow election denier, for saying that Biden was president by God’s will.
“Yo, dude, he’s an illegitimate president. Have you lost your freakin’ mind? This election was stolen,” Bannon said on his War Room show.