Trump Goes All In On Right-Wing Extremism, Taps Breitbart News Chief to Lead Campaign

GOP Nominee Taps Stephen Bannon As Chief Executive

GOP nominee Donald Trump has tapped Stephen Bannon (pictured), head of the right-wing news site Breitbart, to serve as chief executive of his faltering presidential campaign. 

The move amounts to a demotion for Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who’s come under scrutiny for allegedly accepting $12.7 million in payments for consulting work from a pro-Russian political party in the Ukraine. 

The flap over Manafort’s apparent ties to Russia was just one of several controversies and gaffes that have rocked Trump’s campaign in recent weeks, and he now trails Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in all of the battleground states. 

But in selecting Bannon, who has no campaign experience, to try to right the ship, Trump has apparently opted to double down on the very strategy that has alienated so many voters. From Washington Post national reporter Robert Costa:  

Costa reports that Bannon, who once directed a fawning documentary on Sarah Palin, is known for “his fiercely anti-establishment politics,” and that his selection “sent a signal” that Trump “intends to finish this race on his own terms, with friends who share his instincts at his side.” Trump reportedly felt “controlled” and “boxed in” by advisers urging him to tone down his rhetoric to appeal to a general election audience. 

The Trump campaign noted in a statement announcing the move that Bloomberg Politics once referred to Bannon as “the most dangerous political operative in the world.” And The Huffington Post recently reported that critics have dubbed Bannon’s Breitbart News “Trumpbart,” due to its “enthusiasm for Trump’s positions and readiness to attack any perceived enemies in the media and Republican establishment.”  

In fact, Bannon himself has suggested that parts of Trump’s platform were lifted directly from the news site. 

“His thing on illegal alien crime was literally taken off the pages of Breitbart,” Bannon said, adding that “whoever put it in front of him, he was speaking of many of the themes we’ve been covering for years.”

In addition to Bannon, Trump named GOP pollster and strategist Kellyanne Conway as his new campaign manager.