War Room host Steve Bannon recounted the chaotic moments after President Trump’s campaign team learned of the Billy Bush Access Hollywood “grab ’em by the p—-” tape during a wide-ranging interview on PBS’s Frontline.
“I didn’t quite realize it was audio and video. In video, it’s pretty powerful, so everything shuts down,” remarked Bannon.
Bannon, 66, attempted to sway editors at the Washington Post to not post the video but was told, “It’s 3:50, this thing is going up in nine minutes.”
He described the infighting that occurred in Trump’s campaign as aides, including Kellyanne Conway, scrambled to craft a strategy that would mitigate the mounting pressure on Trump to quit the race. Former Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus believed the campaign could not continue after donors and congressional lawmakers began to disavow Trump’s candidacy.
“He says, ‘Look, I’ve talked to the donors; it’s over,” said Bannon, later adding, “He goes, ‘I can’t do it, man; this thing’s over,’ and I go, ‘What do you mean it’s over?'”
Bannon claimed Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell initially pulled their support of Trump after the tape’s release because they were scared it was “the end of the Republican Party.”
“Now, we’ve got a full revolt. Pence is nowhere to be found; he’s not out there. We get a letter from him. Paul Ryan is out of the campaign. McConnell is out,” said Bannon. “Reince lays up a proposal. He asked Reince, ‘What do you think?’ He says, ‘You’ve got two choices. You’re either gonna lose by the biggest landslide in history, or you step down today, and we’ve got a way that we can restructure the ticket … I said, ‘Are you nuts? He’s not going to that!”
Bannon, however, remained confident that Trump could overcome the tape and win the presidency if he focused on a populist message of returning jobs to America.
“They don’t care about vulgarity or anything like that. They care about — they’re losing they’re jobs; they’re losing their country; they see their country going away from them. They don’t have anything to pass down to the kids. That’s what they care about,” Bannon stated.
[Read more: ‘You’re on your own with this one’: Melania was livid with Trump over Access Hollywood tape]
