Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam rejected the suggestion present media scrutiny on the relationship between President Trump and Breitbart chief executive Steve Bannon would drive voters away in a television interview Thursday.
Speaking to Britain’s state-backed media channel BBC News, Kassam noted that while the words between Bannon and President Trump made good television, there were ultimately more important global developments going on which by comparison reduced the episode to little more than “tittle-tattle”.
Noting the back and forth was situation normal for national politics, Kassam said the state of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme deserved more attention: “I think it’s a spectacle, a spectacle because there are a lot of people out there who want to make it a spectacle. If you look at the Drudge Report website in the United States and the breathless coverage of it in the media, people enjoy this, they love the tittle-tattle.
“Fair enough, fair play to them if that’s what they want to do. Let us not forget, there’s an Iranian revolution going on, there’s a little rocket man with a little nuclear button out there, there are bigger issues in the world.”
Kassam also emphasised that the episode wouldn’t damage the conservative movement in the United States. Asked whether this event would “diminish” the President’s standing with his own base, Kassam replied: “I think his supporter base is pretty firm.
“At Breitbart News, we host six hours of live radio a day, and it’s a call in show — 99 per cent of people who have called in over the past 24 hours are staunchly supportive of both Breitbart’s Steve Bannon and supportive of Trump and his political agenda.”
Kassam was the first ally of Steve Bannon on Wednesday when he appeared on the BBC’s flagship political programme Newsnight, when he reminded the host that far from there being a great rift between Bannon’s Breitbart News and the White House, Breitbart remained an ally. He said: “It sticks all together… If you look at what Steve Bannon is doing, if you look at Breitbart News, it is the only news site in the world which truly endorses the MAGA agenda, and it doesn’t need to be ‘either/or’.
“When Donald Trump is himself on the stump, he has the best political instincts of anyone in the past couple of decades, at least, to build that base and get all those people voting and to the rallies… we’re not on different sides here.”