TV show host Jerry Springer said Sunday there is a “conflict” in the White House between President Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, Springer said Trump and the former Brietbart News executive are working towards different end games when it comes to the media. Bannon, he said, wants to delegitimize the press and create a white, Christian America. By contrast, Trump needs to see his name in print every day.
“The White House has a conflict. There is Bannon, and Bannon wants to delegitimize the mainstream media because he — Bannon wants to do away with the idea of a multicultural America and the institutions that protect a multicultural America other than the courts are the free media, the press. And the press is the one that goes after President Trump,” Springer said. “So Bannon wants to delegitimatize so he’s not going to give any space to the regular media.”
Trump, he said, “can’t exist unless his name is in print, whether it’s Twitter, whether it’s the tabloids. … His view of what the media is, is the — either the tabloids or pop culture media, whether it’s TMZ or whatever it is. He can relate to that.”
Reid talked about how people like Bannon work to “stoke conspiracy theories” and fake news websites that work in Trump’s favor. Meanwhile, she said, reporting suggests that Trump “craves the respect” of legitimate news organizations like the New York Times, which is often very critical of him.
Asked if he sees these two efforts as being in conflict, Springer agreed, adding, “you see Bannon and Trump aren’t on the same page with this.”
He said: “Bannon has a philosophical goal and that is, as I said before, to do [away] with the multicultural America. He wants America to be basically Christian and white. Keep out the Mexicans, keep out the Muslims, et cetera.”
Springer hailed the court system and the mainstream media as being the “only institutions left” to ensure a multicultural society.
“That’s why they go after the courts and the media all the time,” he said. “But Trump, it’s like a drug for him. So he can’t get the mainstream media, because obviously, they won’t respect him. So, therefore, he goes to the things he can control. That’s the tabloid journalism or the Twitter account. So Trump gets his drug and Bannon gets the goal of doing away with mainstream media.”
