Steve Bannon Declares MAGA Victory Over Elon Musk on Immigration: ‘We Are Winning This Round’
Steve Bannon joined Politico Playbook’s “First 100 Days” series of interviews on Tuesday and declared a victory of sorts over Elon Musk.
Musk and Bannon have been at the forefront of a fierce MAGA civil war over H-1B foreign worker visas, which Bannon argues hurt American workers and Musk insists are good for the economy.
Bannon and Musk have traded heated barbs over the issue. Bannon has also slammed Musk in the past for his ties to China and suggested he is not loyal to the United States.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon vowed in his weekend interview, excerpts of which were published in Breitbart.
Bannon noted the infighting isn’t over but told host Dasha Burns he’s confident he’s winning. “Going forward, it’s going to be quite intense. I actually think that we’re winning this round and we’re winning this round pretty big,” Bannon said, adding:
He’s he’s already backed off the H-1b visas. We saw he said they’ve got to be reformed. We say they have to be done away with. I think we’ll get Elon there. And as soon as I can turn Elon Musk from a techno-feudalist to a populist nationalist, then we’ll start making real progress.
“If you can’t turn him, do you want him out?” Burns pressed.
“You can turn him, look he’s, the bottom line, he’s not going to be totally out,” Bannon replied, adding:
I mean, there’s reporting today that he is going to have some access, I think, to the EOB, maybe an office over there, particularly with DOGE. So he’s not going to be out.
Look, when you write $250 million worth of checks, when you’ve got when you’re that involved, when you have actually backed a ground game, you’re going to have a seat at the table. I’ve always argued you can’t be at the head of the table and that table shouldn’t be the cabinet room in the West Wing. So I’m a realist and I’ve had this fight before. I know people.
I think some folks remember back in ’17, Elon and I went back and forth virtually every day about the EV tax credits, which I told him at the time. I said people making 32,000 bucks a year are not going to underrate you in these venture capitalists on on on a company that could be worth billions and billions of dollars, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars.
That was Tesla and I won that round. So I’ve gone with Elon before. We’re going to go at it again. Elon’s not going to go away because he’s got, like I say, he’s got the two tactical nuclear weapons.
“But do you think he has too much…” Burns followed up as Bannon interjected, “And he will use those tactical nuclear weapons.”
“Do you think he has too much influence right now? I mean, he’s been posted up at Mar-a-Lago. He’s been in Trump’s ear nonstop since the election,” Burns asked.
“As a teacher in Harvard Business School says in the first year. There’s power in this influence. What’s shocking to me is he doesn’t have much power,” Bannon replied.
“Why do you say that?” Burns pressed.
“Well, because, because he doesn’t have the ability to actually make decisions, informed those decisions and drive those decisions. If you look at even the time at Mar-a-Lago, he’s come in, he’s had some he’s had definitely had some influence and he’s had some influence on on picks,” Bannon explained.
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
