Bannon dismisses McCain, Bush speeches as ‘more pablum’

Former White House strategist Stephen Bannon on Monday called administration-critical speeches by former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “more pablum.” 

The chief executive of far-right website Breitbart News compared the two speeches made last week with that of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

{mosads}“Last week in a span of I think 24 hours, we had the speech of President Xi, the speech of President Bush and the speech of Senator McCain,” Bannon said during a Hudson Institute forum in Washington.

“And I would respectfully submit that President Xi’s speech was an adult speech to adults and that President Bush and … McCain’s speech was just more pablum.”

Bush last week warned that “bigotry seems emboldened” in the United States and that Americans need to reject “white supremacy.”

Though he did not specifically mention Trump, Congress or any political figures, Bush criticized the “governing class,” in remarks during a New York City forum focused on security and sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute. 

“Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seem more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication,” Bush said.

Bannon the next day attacked Bush’s legacy, and said there had “not been a more destructive presidency.” 

“It was clear he didn’t understand anything he was talking about,” Bannon said of Bush’s speech. “He has no earthly idea of whether he’s coming or going, just like it was when he was president of the United States.”

McCain on Twitter praised the former president for “reminding us of the values that have made America a beacon of hope for all.”

Earlier in the week McCain criticized the “half-baked, spurious nationalism” in the United States after receiving the National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal.

“To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain ‘the last best hope of earth’ for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history,” McCain said in the speech.

Bannon, during a discussion in which he referred to The New York Times as “the opposition party,” and offered frequent praise for Trump’s foreign policy moves, shot back that Trump is fulfilling his promises.

“The reality is what Donald Trump … promised the American people on inaugural day and what he’s implementing every day is he goes out and works with his tremendous team to try to do this,” Bannon said.