Stephen Bannon says, to his knowledge, Trump 'has never lied'

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon resurfaced Sunday for an appearance on ABC's This Week to weigh in on, among other things, President Trump's honesty and what's wrong with the pope.

President Trump "has not always told the truth," host Jonathan Karl said while recalling Bannon's time in the White House, but Bannon disagreed. "I don't know that," Bannon replied. “This is another thing to demonize him." Karl pushed back: "You think the president has never lied?"

Bannon said he thinks exactly that. "Not to my knowledge, no," he answered. "Except when he called me Sloppy Steve."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Bannon also addressed the Trump administration's broadly condemned and not legally mandatory policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border. "It's zero tolerance. I don't think you have to justify it," he said. "We have a crisis on the southern border but the elites in the city ... want to manage situations to bad outcomes. And Donald Trump is not going to do that."

In contrast with his praise for Trump, Bannon, a professing Catholic, slammed Pope Francis for his approach to Europe's refugee crisis and labeled the Catholic Church "one of the worst instigators of this open borders policy." Watch those comments below. Bonnie Kristian