Stephen Bannon claims Trump's border crackdown is actually 'anti-racist'

Former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon has not forgotten the tools of the trade — he still has a penchant for spinning things.

President Trump's former chief strategist in an interview with BBC said that the White House's crackdown on immigration at the southern border is actually anything but racist, no matter what critics say.

"It's actually anti-racist," Bannon said. "What President Trump is trying to do is protect African American and Hispanic workers, and people in these cities."

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

He blamed the mainstream media for blowing Trump's rhetoric out of proportion, including the president's racist tweets directed at four Democratic congresswomen earlier this month. Bannon did say that he thinks the best course of action is to defeat progressives like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) at the polls, but added that Trump has "his own house style" and it's not racist.

Bannon doesn't work for Trump anymore, but the interview shows he doesn't "need to be in the campaign" to help try to get the president re-elected in 2020. Watch the full clip below. Tim O'Donnell