Rep. Pete King's Empty Call for Bannon's Resignation – An Act of Political Expediency

Rep. Peter King called for President Trump to fire White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon one day before Bannon’s removal was officially announced.

King was reacting to Bannon’s recent interview with The American Prospect where Bannon said, “The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
King said Bannon was “exploiting the racial issue,” and that it was “important for the president to fire Steve Bannon.” He added, “To me, his time in the White House should be over.”

Bannon’s time in the White House should never have begun. This is a point I made clear to Rep. King when I sat down with him this February. Steve Bannon was a known anti-Semitic white supremacist at the time President Trump hired him, and appointed him to the National Security Council. Bannon boasted that his Breitbart News site was the “platform for the alt-right.” Under his leadership the site published numerous misogynistic, bigoted headlines, including: “Planned Parenthood’s Body Count Under Cecile Richards is Up to Half a Holocaust,” and “Political Correctness Protects Muslim Rape Culture.”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called Bannon’s appointment “excellent.” He said that Bannon was “basically creating the ideological aspects of where we're going, and ideology ultimately is the most important aspect of any government."

When I asked Rep. King in February how he felt about Bannon’s appointment, I reminded him that he is well known for being a white supremacist. King responded: “First of all I won’t accept that. I don’t know enough about Bannon. I’ve read everything that’s out there, but I also know there’s people out there like some fairly prominent moderates who have said it’s unfair to say about him.” If King had actually read “everything that’s out there,” he would have known then that Bannon had no place on our National Security Council.
When I asked whether Rep. King would support the bill to remove Bannon from the National Security Council, to ensure we didn't have political operatives on the NSC, he replied, "Congress cannot interfere with the president as far as who is on the president’s staff. No."

Interesting then that last week, two weeks after Bannon had reportedly submitted his letter of resignation, and just one day before it was made public, Rep. King finally decided to speak up. 41,000 of King’s Jewish constituents heard white supremacists chant, “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville this weekend. 70,000 of King’s black constituents watched as white men violently protested the removal of a statute that symbolizes slavery. We all heard our president defend white nationalists, saying they included “some very fine people.” Fine people don’t march with those carrying Nazi flags and swastikas.

Months ago, when I asked Rep. King if he felt that President Trump’s use of the term "America First," knowing that it was made popular by American Nazi-sympathizers in the 1930s, was anti-Semitic, he said, “I wouldn’t use it, because I know the history of it.” So, while King acknowledged that it was an anti-Semitic term, when I asked again if Trump’s use of it was anti-Semitic, he replied, “Trump? No. He’s the most non anti-Semitic president we’ve ever had. That I can say. Long before it was fashionable."

Bannon is a convenient scapegoat for President Trump. Accusing Bannon of “exploiting the racial issue” and calling for his removal is now politically expedient for King. We need a congressman who will denounce hate and stand up for what’s right even when it does not benefit him. King can start by asking the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute the murder in Charlottesville as an act of domestic terrorism.