Moments after news broke that Steve Bannon was out at the White House, the Drudge Report started polling the crowd about his future. Will the blistering populist A) Return to Breitbart, B) Launch Talk Radio Career, C) Write Tell All Book, or D) Run a Think Tank?
On that last think tank option, would Bannon ever replace fiery conservative Jim DeMint as president of the Heritage Foundation? “No. No. No,” Heritage Founder Ed Feulner told me in a May interview.
Current Drudge poll on Bannon: pic.twitter.com/37M24zRsez
— Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 18, 2017
Back then the idea of Bannon remaking Heritage into an alt-right ivory tower seemed possible. The New York Times reported that Rebekah Mercer, a wealthy heiress and Heritage board member, was pushing the idea. And on Fox News, Heritage Action CEO Mike Needham demurred.
During DeMint’s public ouster, Heritage, Capitol Hill, and some in the administration feared Bannon would take over. Even Feulner’s own daughter wondered if the alt-right provocateur would become Heritage president.
“When she saw that reported in the New York Times,” Feulner told me, “she said, ‘Dad, are you really?'” To answer, the loquacious academic cut to the chase, “I said Emily, 100 percent no, not at Heritage.”
So while an army of pepe the frogs probably wants to become policy wonks if Bannon leads a think tank, they won’t find a home at Heritage.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
