Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon defended his views on immigration during an interview that aired Friday and said they exhibited “economic nationalism,” not racism.
“The H-1B Visa where you come and take the jobs of American citizens is just not acceptable,” Bannon said during an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that aired Friday. “And that’s not racist.”
“The central beating heart of this is that Hispanics and blacks have to get into the high valley tech jobs, we’re not doing that as long as they have unfair competition,” he added.
The remarks came in response to a question from Zakaria about whether some of Bannon’s past rhetoric on the subject was racist.
“No, no. Economic nationalism doesn’t care about race, ethnicity, religion. Doesn’t care about gender, doesn’t care about religion, it doesn’t care what your sexual preference is. It cares about if you’re a United States citizen,” Bannon said.
Prior to the question being asked, Zakaria said he took Bannon “at face value” when he says he is not a racist
Bannon has made previous remarks where he suggested that Silicon Valley has too many Asian C.E.O.s.
