Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon predicted President Trump will implement more restrictive measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, reasoned that a “harder” shutdown will institute a faster revival of the economy, even as the president has voiced support for paring back many restrictions across the country.
Still, Bannon said he believes there will be a “big shift” this weekend after the president sees more data.
“I think you go to a harder lockdown right now, a harder lockdown right now, and then we bridge —,” Bannon said on Watters’ World. “Nobody should lose a job. No company should go out of business. We’ve got to bridge the small companies, the entrepreneurs to get through to the other side.”
“If you have to go through hell, go through it as fast as possible,” Bannon said. “The president is a wartime president. He’s made some tough calls already. He’s shut down all the traffic coming in from China. And he quarantined everybody that came back. And he was criticized by Morning Joe and [2020 rival Joe] Biden and those guys as being racist, nativist, and xenophobic.”
Bannon suggested that the numbers in so-called hot spots, such as New York City, will sway the president to move toward a “harder lockdown.”
“I think President Trump is gonna come to the conclusion: ‘Hey, I want to tighten this thing up some more so that we can get through this quicker and faster and have a steeper — have a stepper revival.’ And I believe that is what is going to happen,” he added.
Counter to Bannon’s prediction, Trump has signaled he is leaning toward lifting restrictions sooner rather than later, at least domestically, even as the experts on his coronavirus task force warn state and local officials not to let their guard down.
On Saturday, Trump backed down from issuing a quarantine of New York and the surrounding area to stop the spread of the coronavirus in places he has described as “hot spots,” instead having the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issue a “strong” travel advisory.
The president said last week his administration is working on a plan for how the country can start returning to normal around Easter following widespread shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus. In a Thursday letter, Trump told the nation’s governors that data on the coronavirus pandemic would be examined at the county level.
