The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters writes that Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon “offered a message of soothing reassurance to the conservative activists” at the annual CPAC conference on Thursday. Bannon’s reputation, Peters writes, “has taken on almost mythic proportion as a fire-breathing populist, emerging power center, man of mystery.”
From the New York Times:
[Bannon] urged a ballroom full of activists to stick together against the forces that were trying to tear them apart. “Whether you’re a populist, whether you’re a limited-government conservative, whether you’re a libertarian, whether you’re an economic nationalist,” he said, “we want you to have our back.”
Despite Mr. Bannon’s assurances, a simmering unease remains among conservatives over whether Mr. Trump will honor his promises to them, given that he was not part of their movement — or any political movement, for that matter — until very recently.
Not too many years ago CPAC almost denied Mr. Trump a speaking slot because it feared he only wanted to promote himself. As for Mr. Bannon, he was essentially banished from the premises when he was running Breitbart News. So Mr. Bannon started a rival conference at a hotel down the street and called it The Uninvited.
Read the rest here.