The alleged “far-right,” Harvard graduate, Steve Bannon, born in 1953 in Norfolk, Virginia, served in 2017 as a senior strategic adviser to the White House and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Despite leaving amid controversy, Bannon remained an influential voice in the MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement, and because of his role in the Capitol invasion, he was jailed for four months and released shortly before last November’s election. He currently retains his seat on the board of Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm owned by the wealthy Mercer family, and is a shareholder in the Breitbart news network.

Speaking to protothema.gr, Bannon is… torrential. He denounces the attitude of the West, the EU, and NATO towards the Ukrainians, calls on President Trump to end Kyiv’s war with Moscow, speaks of European elites with their hands “dipped in blood” and calls Boris Johnson “worse than a war criminal”.

He also expresses concern about the spread of war from Ukraine and the Middle East to Greece and Türkiye but appears confident that the US will not let that happen. At the same time, he rejects Silicon Valley’s “techno-feudalism” and reveals his thoughts on the uncertain future of Trump’s relationship with Musk.

A relationship that is already being tested, after the first friction between the two and the… door from the White House chief of staff to the Tesla tycoon.

Full Bannon interview with protothema.gr

What’s the difference between President Trump’s previous term, which you began as chief counsel, and the one that began a few days ago?

They are fundamentally different. You saw President Trump and the Common Sense Revolution at Davos. We’ve been preparing for it for four years. In 2016 we had very few people in the MAGA movement. We had, yes, enough votes to get elected, but to put it in football terms we had no “depth on the bench”. But now, we started the work in 2021 when the President’s term was up. So, the current government is a four-year project.

I was actively involved in setting up “think tanks” such as “Project 2025”, the “America First” Institute the “Center for Renewing America”. These “think tanks” have been a “reservoir” of human resources and ideas for the current Trump administration. What is happening now, what we call “stormy days” where we see hundreds of decrees and actions being announced, have been prepared for the last four years and have resulted in the repositioning of America, strategically, economically, and geopolitically.

And what is the “new world order”

We see a major shift playing out in national security and foreign policy. Foreign Minister Rubio has officially spoken of the end of the rules that defined the international order after World War II. We no longer intend to participate in a system dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. We will formulate a new system based on “America First”. And this is already evident in our economic policy and new trade measures, not just tariffs. We see President Trump reorienting American policy toward advanced technology production where we are the world leader. The price for foreign companies and countries looking to acquire these goods should be similar. Strategically, from the Panama Canal to Greenland, the U.S. protects its maritime borders. And this will surely have a huge impact on our relations with countries that are hitherto considered friendly.

What is the role of Ilon Musk? Do you see an expiration date on his relationship with President Trump?

Elon Musk and I were at odds in 2017. At the time he wanted to cash in on the financial incentives that were in place to promote the use of electric cars. And I told him at the time that it’s not reasonable to expect the average American, who makes $35,000 or $40,000 a year, to fund the activities of a venture capitalist like himself, who was already a billionaire. So, by my decision, we cut off his subsidies. When we met, I told him, “You’re a great entrepreneur, but the average American won’t pay for you and your rich friends to get richer.” But now he has actively supported Trump in the election season. He “cut” a check for $250 million. In the US, even in a system awash in money, this was unprecedented. It was perhaps the most important “lifeline” that led to the election victory. And I had said all along that Musk should have had a seat at the table. Today, we have a government deficit of two trillion for which we have to borrow.

And it’s not fair to the global financial system, nor to the American people to suck off their wealth to finance our debt. The dollar has lost 20% of its value under the Biden administration. We have to stop this. DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) under the leadership of Elon Musk could be instrumental in helping OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to dismantle the government bureaucracy. He promised President Trump cuts of $1 trillion. This should develop and be seen somewhat in the next 30 days. That’s what Musk should be focusing on, rather than expressing opinions on many different and disparate issues. He has the most important role ever addressed to a private citizen by the US government.

What was the subject of your most recent conversation with Elon Musk?

What has emerged in the last few days is that he is questioning the president’s judgment on this joint venture involving artificial intelligence. He has some conflict with Sam Altman, who is the CEO of OpenAI, and they brought that conflict from Silicon Valley to the West Wing of the party, which is not right. So I told him he needed to focus on his government duties. And I agree that if he continues to do so, the end of his relationship with Trump will not be far behind.

We also have to say that Musk and the Silicon Valley businessmen have created a kind of Apartheid. These were all once progressive Democrats who were allowed to create this “apartheid” state because it benefited the masters of easy money and the people who controlled the US government. All the resources created there were used to suppress the voice of President Trump. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, YouTube, all of it. But we won. And we refuse to accept that this techno-feudalism will determine America’s future, institutions and democracy.

Is your statement in Politico that the war in Ukraine will be the new “Vietnam” true?

The West, the European Union and NATO have lied to the Ukrainian people. Boris Johnson, who is worse than war criminals, lied to the Ukrainian people and led them down a destructive path. I said that the West would abandon these people at the most critical moment. And they will fight until the last Ukrainian dies. We are now in a worse negotiating position than we were three years ago. We are not just talking about the lost Donbas and the eastern Russian-speaking provinces of Crimea. Today, 40% of the Russian army is near the Dnieper River. This problem has now been dumped on President Trump. So my recommendation to the President is that “this is not your war”. This war would never have happened if Trump hadn’t stolen the election and Biden hadn’t been put in office by the establishment machine. With Trump as president, Putin would never have gone to war with a country allied to the US president. Because he fears him. This war was started by the Western elites and led the Ukrainian people to destruction. President Trump should not take any responsibility for this war. It is a European problem. He should not repeat President Nixon’s mistake in Vietnam.

But the problem is there, it’s there. What is he going to do to deal with it?

Stop him immediately. President Trump has nothing to do with this war. His hands are clean, unlike those of the European elites who are drenched in blood.

What will be the future relationship between Europe and the US?

We are all part of the Judeo-Christian West. I mean, when President Trump started his last term, the first big trip he took was first to Riyadh, to the Islamic world, then to Jerusalem, then to Rome. The America First movement and President Trump’s MAGA movement believe that Athens, Jerusalem and Rome are the backbone of our society. We believe strongly in the Judeo-Christian West and are tremendous admirers of Greece, what we owe to it, and what Greece means as the land where democracy was born. The Greeks took on the Persian Empire. It’s an incredible source of inspiration for us. We cannot allow ourselves to have the elites of Europe, the people in Gstaad, the people in Provence, the people in all the villas in Italy, in the West End of London, to lead the United States into these endless wars.

Europe must cease to be a protectorate of the United States. President Trump has an anti-imperialist mindset. We don’t want to be all over the world. We don’t want to have troops all over the world. We are not an empire. Our country started with a revolution against an empire. And what we don’t want is patrons, whether it’s patrons in the Middle East, or the South China Sea, or Western Europe.

Will the waters of the Aegean Sea be calm, do you think, as in previous years?

Look, first of all, Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is a very close friend of mine, is one of the most brilliant people to come out of the Fox network in years. She was chosen to be an ambassador to Greece for a reason. President Trump also chose one of his best friends and one of my close friends, Tom Barack, to be ambassador to Turkey. For Turkey, this is a very big challenge at this time because it aims to restore the Ottoman Empire and rise as the new caliphate in the region. Erdogan and the people around him are very focused on gaining control of the two holy places in the Middle East, especially now that Iran has collapsed due to the defeat of Hezbollah. Turkey, with the collapse of Syria as well, has become a major player.

But this region is the arc of instability. The war from Ukraine has moved to the Middle East. If it gets out of control, it will metastasize into the Balkans through Greece and Turkey. That’s why I’ve told Barack and Kimberly that we need to put a huge emphasis on the region, or this thing could get out of hand and turn into a World War III. But the US is not going to allow that to happen.