Steve Bannon Chides Josh Mandel After GOP Debate Almost Comes to Blows: ‘Tone Down The Personal Animosity’

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, questioned Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel for almost “throwing down” and fighting a 70-year-old man during a debate last week.

“What was it that hit the tripwire that you had to stand up to a 70-year-old guy and basically throw down right there if it hadn’t been for the moderator, maybe J.D. Vance, maybe you two guys would have gone at it,” Bannon started off on Monday’s episode of his War Room podcast, asking Mandel about the bombastic debate that made headlines across the country.

“Gibbons is an old Irishman and so there would have been a couple blows thrown,” Bannon added, saying, “You’re known as a fighter, even the people that don’t like you know you as a fight.”

“Why make a big display of it?” Bannon asked.

Mandel answered claiming “I wasn’t making a display, I was standing up for military men and women throughout our country.” Mandel went on to claim that Mike Gibbons, one of his opponents in the Ohio GOP senate primary, attacked U.S. military personnel as not having a “real job” and then tied Gibbons to China and Hunter Biden.

As the conversation continued, Bannon pushed Mandel on his tone. Bannon noted Mandel claims Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is his mentor, a topic Bannon would later push Mandel on, and asked if that is true “would you commit to toning this down?”

“Keep the content as hot as you can. Say, you made this money but to tone down the personal animosity so that people can actually hear these debates and hear what people have to say. If you disagree with the guy, chop him up then. Would you commit to not having these things throw down to some type of physical confrontation?” Bannon asked as his program was having technical difficulties.

Mandel denied there was any personal animosity, which Bannon quickly pushed back on given the heated nature of the debate.

“When you say there’s no personal animosity, if you had not been separated, don’t you believe that you two guys would have come to blows?” Bannon asked smiling.

“Being an Irishman and being in enough bars in my life, it looked like it was about to be — it was a throwdown. It looked like it was about to come to blows. If you hadn’t been broken up, would you guys have not gotten into a physical confrontation? Because you weren’t backing down and he wasn’t backing down,” Bannon noted of the confrontation in which Mandel called Gibbons a “pussy” as the two candidates physically faced each other down on stage.

“I don’t know where it was going, I have no idea where it would have gone,” Mandel responded.

“I’m not dialing anything down for tonight,” Mandel added, referencing another debate planned for Monday night. “If anything, we’re going to dial it up.”

Watch the full clip above via War Room