Steve Bannon said that “shock troops” need to be prepared to take over and “deconstruct” the state when the next Republican president is elected, reports say.
Bannon made the comments in a phone call to NBC News following reports that he had met with Trump political appointees on Wednesday to discuss how they could help the next Republican president.
“If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately,” Bannon told NBC. “I gave ’em fire and brimstone.”
Bannon, who ran Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and later served as an adviser to the president, told NBC that he wants to see pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies when the next Republican president takes office.
He said that Trump’s agenda was delayed by the challenges of quickly filling approximately 4,000 posts at federal agencies, NBC said.
“We’re going to have a sweeping victory in 2022, and that’s just the preamble to a sweeping victory in 2024, and this time we’re going to be ready — and have a MAGA perspective, MAGA policies, not the standard Republican policies,” Bannon told the outlet.
MAGA is a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Bannon described a 2024 electoral victory as a “second term” for Trump, reported NBC.
The launch party at the Capitol Hill Club on Wednesday where Bannon spoke was hosted by a new organization called the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, NBC said.
It aims to be a resource for future GOP officials to tap into to fill federal jobs quickly, the outlet reported.