Steve Inskeep speaks with War Room Podcast Host and Trump ally Steve Bannon about the changes the U.S. President has introduced in his first months in office in 2025 and where he sees things heading.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Reena Advani and produced by Barry Gordemer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are the key changes in Trump's first 100 days?
How do President Trump's first 100 days look to Steve Bannon? He's an early backer of the president who served in his first White House and remains influential. We'll listen for clues to where Trump's movement may be going in a special episode of Up First from NPR News.
Steve Bannon promoted Trump's cause in the 2016 campaign when his Breitbart website pushed out stories about Trump and immigration and the left. In 2020, he supported Trump's bid to overturn his election defeat. We talked with Bannon as the president finished the first hundred days of his second term. Settle in for Up First from NPR News.
Chapter 2: How does Steve Bannon assess Trump's influence?
Steve Bannon did not go into the second Trump administration the way that he did for the first. His position of influence today is instead a daily webcast that is also a podcast.
OK, it's Monday, 28 April, Year of Alert 2025.
He puts out hours of programming that people follow when trying to understand a wide swath of Trump supporters.
Bannon has understood the MAGA voter better than basically anybody on the right.
Tim Miller is a former Republican strategist and writer.
The language that he uses, the policy positions that he takes are kind of a window into where the Republican Party is going.
We visited Bannon at the studio where he broadcasts, the basement of a Washington, D.C. townhouse. It's filled with books and newspapers. When we last visited just before the inauguration, he was broadcasting in front of a mantle covered with Christian icons and slogans. When we came by 100 days later, the mantle had a few additions, signs reading, God will not be mocked and we can do hard things.
We've got to start making things again. The high value added part of manufacturing has to come back. Something that a man or a woman can have a job and have a family and have their spouse stay home if they so want and raise their kids. Once we're back to that, the country is going to be vibrant and robust again.
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Chapter 3: What economic vision does Bannon advocate for?
Bannon describes a return to an older economy, which is connected with a more traditional idea of the family. He sees that distant goal amid the trade war, the firing of government employees, and a drive to deport as many people as possible, all of which he discussed in a characteristically expansive conversation about the first hundred days.
It's a revolution about America's role in the world. our position geopolitically, the global commercial relationships, plus the administrative state and how the countries govern. He's so much farther down the path and so much more aggressive than I think anybody would ever thought.
Certainly a lot of attention, but help me understand how much has really changed. I've heard you talk about government spending. Doge has gotten a lot of attention. Elon Musk has a lot of attention. Analysts have said the actual savings are not that great. It might end up costing the government something.
First off, I do think – and I've had tremendous disagreements with Elon Musk. I do believe you had to have a trauma-inducing force like Doge to kind of rattle the administrative state. I think they really served a purpose. Now, to the degree that they find actual trillion dollars, which I was always skeptical about, in waste and fraud, but there will be something.
I've actually called for an audit of that. Number two, there also has to be a certification that no data or data sets of American citizens have gone anywhere except to the Trump administration and or the U.S. government. You have doubts? Trust but verify.
When you listen to Steve Bannon, you hear some of the debates within Trump's coalition. Bannon is focused on government debt. He wants to reduce spending, even military spending, which Republicans traditionally support. He says he personally would raise taxes on the wealthy. And he's hoping that Trump's trade war eventually restores those high-paying jobs for the working class.
What have you thought about as the president imposed tariffs on China, raised the tariffs on China dramatically, then backed off on key products, and then talked about making a deal with China even though there's been negotiations? Why do you think he changed so much?
Well, number one, I think we started a process with the nations of East Asia. You have Japan, you have South Korea, you have Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, and now India also. All in discussions around a basic architecture that kind of stacked up for Besson to get these deals done, or at least to get the architecture of it done, not the actual finished deals.
Yeah, we have no deals yet that we know.
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Chapter 4: How are tariffs affecting U.S.-China relations?
Chapter 5: What are the implications of government spending cuts?
What have you thought about as the president imposed tariffs on China, raised the tariffs on China dramatically, then backed off on key products, and then talked about making a deal with China even though there's been negotiations? Why do you think he changed so much?
Well, number one, I think we started a process with the nations of East Asia. You have Japan, you have South Korea, you have Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, and now India also. All in discussions around a basic architecture that kind of stacked up for Besson to get these deals done, or at least to get the architecture of it done, not the actual finished deals.
Yeah, we have no deals yet that we know.
Well, but you do have, I think this week, they're talking about maybe two or three memorandums of understanding on the architecture of it. But President Trump went in full force. He's got his own negotiating style. I think he's been quite smart about how to do this. He's obviously wants to make sure that the store shelves are not totally empty.
I mean, as of yesterday, we have a full embargo on Chinese goods.
Except for consumer electronics, iPhones, anything that we consider truly valuable.
Some of that's starting to come through as we alleviate somewhat. Does he look weak by changing all the time? I don't think he looks weak.
I think he looks like a very smart deal guy trying to move the chess pieces, right? When we visited Steve Bannon at the start of this week, he had just finished his morning webcast. He spent parts of it pressing the president to go even further than Trump has. Here's what I do with Harvard. And I don't think President Trump's being hard enough.
Bannon has a Harvard MBA and made money on Wall Street and in Hollywood, but now speaks out against the elites. He wants the government to target top private and public universities.
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Chapter 6: How does Bannon view judicial resistance to Trump's policies?
If every one of these criminal terrorists have due process that's 200 years before they get out, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. The American people back Trump on this, and they have to go, and they're going to go.
And the argument against due process is just that it's inconvenient.
It would take too much time for millions of people. The convenience thing is one, but it's just you don't need it. It's not necessary. It's time of war, and they're going to leave. Let me ask you about another thing, though.
having to do with the Constitution and tariffs. This is another instance where the president says, there's an emergency, I'm going to raise taxes, tomorrow I'm going to lower taxes. OK, if you want to call them tariffs, I'm going to raise them, I'm going to lower them. Did you call them taxes? They are taxes paid by Americans, according to economists.
In any event, whatever we call them, Americans seem to pay them when the imports are brought in. The president has asserted the right to massively affect the economy and then change it again today and hours later and hours later without consulting Congress because he says it's an emergency. It's gone so far that some Republicans in Congress are trying to reclaim their power.
Does it concern you at all that a president could claim the power to completely transform the economy all by himself just on his say-so?
Well, it's not just on his say-so. He did execute emergency powers to do this given the emergency that's there both on fentanyl And on the national security aspect.
But the emergency is he says there's an emergency. That's all there is.
No, he gave backup document to him on the fentanyl issue. Canada? The deficits alone. The trade deficit's $25 trillion, brother.
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Chapter 7: What are the concerns about presidential emergency powers?
Chapter 8: What does Bannon say about deportations and immigration?
It would take too much time for millions of people. The convenience thing is one, but it's just you don't need it. It's not necessary. It's time of war, and they're going to leave. Let me ask you about another thing, though.
having to do with the Constitution and tariffs. This is another instance where the president says, there's an emergency, I'm going to raise taxes, tomorrow I'm going to lower taxes. OK, if you want to call them tariffs, I'm going to raise them, I'm going to lower them. Did you call them taxes? They are taxes paid by Americans, according to economists.
In any event, whatever we call them, Americans seem to pay them when the imports are brought in. The president has asserted the right to massively affect the economy and then change it again today and hours later and hours later without consulting Congress because he says it's an emergency. It's gone so far that some Republicans in Congress are trying to reclaim their power.
Does it concern you at all that a president could claim the power to completely transform the economy all by himself just on his say-so?
Well, it's not just on his say-so. He did execute emergency powers to do this given the emergency that's there both on fentanyl And on the national security aspect.
But the emergency is he says there's an emergency. That's all there is.
No, he gave backup document to him on the fentanyl issue. Canada? The deficits alone. The trade deficit's $25 trillion, brother.
That's not an emergency. The United States does have an annual trade deficit with other nations, which the Trump White House estimates at $1.2 trillion last year. We buy more stuff than we sell. It's often balanced by foreign investments in the United States.
And that's not a bookkeeping thing that the Wall Street guys say. That's resources that went to us, to other countries, 18 trading to China.
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