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      Biden says in rare print interview he’ll beat Trump but polls say otherwise

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      In a rare print interview, Joe Biden addressed fears over his chances of victory in the coming US presidential election and said he was “the only one who has ever beat” his likely Republican challenger, Donald Trump, adding: “And I’ll beat him again.”But the president was voicing a conviction at odds with most polling, in which clear majorities think that at 81 he is too old for a second term and narrow majorities put Trump ahead in a general election match-up.Biden was in conversation with Evan Osnos of the New Yorker, whose short biography of Biden was published in 2020, the year the former senator and vice-president secured the Democratic nomination at his third attempt and then beat Trump.Osnos wrote: “Now, having reached the apex of power, [Biden] gives off a conviction that borders on serenity – a bit too much serenity for Democrats who wonder if he can still beat the man with whom his legacy will be forever entwined.“Given the doubts, I asked, wasn’t it a risk to say, ‘I’m the one to do it’?“He shook his head and said: ‘No. I’m the only one who has ever beat him. And I’ll beat him again.’”Poised to secure the Republican nomination after the Super Tuesday primaries this week, Trump is only three and a half years Biden’s junior. But even amid public slips and gaffes every bit as glaring as those by Biden, fewer Americans think Trump is too old to return to office.Trump also faces unprecedented legal jeopardy, arising from his conduct in business, on the campaign trail and in office.Of 91 criminal charges, 17 concern election subversion, 40 arise from Trump’s retention of classified information and 34 are related to hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.Trump also faces multimillion-dollar civil fines, over his business affairs and a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”. Attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection, by supporters of his lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Biden, failed on Monday with the rejection by the US supreme court of a case in Colorado.Osnos noted that regardless of such unprecedented challenges for a (near-certain) presidential challenger, “by the usual measures” on which incumbents are judged – falling violent crime, unemployment below 4%, record stock-market highs – “Biden should be cruising to re-election”.And yet, even amid warnings from pundits that conventional polling means little so far out from election day, Trump is generally ahead.This weekend, a rash of polls made bad reading for Biden, though some said the same for Trump.
      The New York Times and Siena College put Trump up 48%-43% and said Democrats were split on whether Biden should be their nominee, with young voters, likely to disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, expressing particular doubt.
      CBS News and YouGov said most voters favoured Trump on the economy, regardless of such conditions as outlined by Osnos and also Trump’s record, thanks to Covid-19, of leaving office 2.9m jobs down and with unemployment at 6.3%.
      Fox News put Trump up two points in a general election match-up and ahead with voters on the economy and immigration, the latter issue one on which he recently forced congressional Republicans to tank a hardline bipartisan deal.
      The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said 60% of respondents were “not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president”, up from about 50% in January 2022. Nearly 60% said the same of Trump.
      Biden became a senator in 1973 and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. He was vice-president to Barack Obama between 2009 and 2017 before securing the presidential nomination in 2020 with a campaign built on the threat he said Trump posed to American democracy itself.Such messaging has been central to Biden’s re-election bid but David Axelrod, formerly chief strategist to Obama and a prominent Biden critic, told Osnos: “I’m pretty certain in Scranton [Pennsylvania, Biden’s home town] they’re not sitting around their dinner table talking about democracy every night.”“The Republican message is: the world’s out of control and Biden’s not in command. That’s the entire message – Trump, the strongman, is the solution. I think you have to be thinking about how you counter that, and how you deal with fears about Biden’s condition.”Calls for Biden to step aside for a younger candidate have been rejected by the White House and most progressive pundits. In conversation with Osnos, Biden remained resolute.For the president, Osnos wrote, “the offense of the contested election [in 2020] was clearly personal. Trump had not just tried to steal the presidency – he had tried to steal it from him.”Biden said: “I’d ask a rhetorical question. If you thought you were best positioned to beat someone who, if they won, would change the nature of America, what would you do?’ More

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      How Gaza activists in Minnesota are pushing the US wave of ‘uncommitted’ votes

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      Dozens of families turned up to a Minneapolis park on Sunday to hear why they should cast an “uncommitted” protest vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary and how that could affect the Israel-Gaza war.Kids played on the playground or made signs to support Palestine while their caregivers listened as organizers shared an “easy action”: show up at your local polling place on Tuesday, ask for a Democratic ballot and check the box that says “uncommitted”.Minnesota organizers, inspired by the strong turnout for an uncommitted vote in Michigan, quickly put together a coalition to get out the word that Minnesota voters should follow Michigan’s example.In Michigan, Democrats set a goal to get 10,000 uncommitted votes; more than 100,000 people instead voted uncommitted, a message to Joe Biden that Democratic voters demand his action on Palestine. The Israel-Gaza war serves as a key liability for the US president in his re-election bid, and his positions on the issue have turned some Democrats away from him during what is shaping up to be a close race with Donald Trump.After Michigan’s success, organizers in other progressive states that have uncommitted options on their ballots have started working on local efforts to keep the pressure on Biden for a ceasefire. Minnesota, a Super Tuesday state, has a few factors that give it potential for a good turnout for the uncommitted vote: high voter turnout overall, a progressive history, a large Muslim community. Minnesota’s campaign could further buoy the movement and boost the protest vote in other states, organizers hope.“We vote in Minnesota. Number one in the country for turnout,” said Jaylani Hussein, a co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Minnesota. “And when it comes to minorities and immigrants, we also have historically high, record turnout.”At the Minneapolis park, Amanda Purcell of MN Families for Palestine led the audience in a chant: “Gaza kids! Our kids!” The organization has worked for months to reach out to elected officials to support a ceasefire by using small actions that people with kids can easily do.“We’re really starting to feel the momentum here,” Purcell said. “And we’re hoping that what we do here will just continue to push the wave of uncommitted across the United States.”Supporters passed out a flyer with a QR code where people could fill out a form to pledge to vote uncommitted, which calls on those pledging their support to also send the form to three other families to share the message.Over the past week, Minnesota activists have called and texted voters to push out the “uncommitted” message. They’ve gone to mosques around the state to share the idea, targeting Minnesota’s Muslim population. They’ve held rallies. They’ve reached out to college students, families, people who’ve attended protests in the past.Groups around Minnesota have protested and worked to move their local members of Congress on Palestine. They’ve shown up on Democratic governor Tim Walz’s lawn, calling on him to get the state to divest from Israel. The progressive state with a history of grassroots organizing saw existing groups work together to quickly stand up an uncommitted campaign.Some Democratic voters in the state had seen what happened in Michigan and already planned to vote uncommitted, said Asma Mohammed, one of the organizers behind Vote Uncommitted MN. To others, supporters explained the idea of “uncommitted” being a protest vote. Some voters had shared that they’d felt there was no reason to show up for the presidential primary because their voices weren’t being heard in a contest dominated by a sitting president; “uncommitted” gives them an option to send a message, Mohammed said.Mohammed is against a Trump presidency, as are, she says, the rest of the organizers. But there is real disapproval and discontent with Democrats and Biden among the communities who want to see a ceasefire. People are “really angry”, and she hopes the primary vote for uncommitted helps Biden understand that he and the party are losing longtime Democrats, perhaps permanently, because of this.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m hoping that President Biden listens, because I don’t want to have to organize my community out of becoming Republicans or just sitting at home,” Mohammed said. “And it’s not just my community.”Minnesota’s campaign doesn’t have a number goal like Michigan did. Instead, organizers want to keep Michigan’s first step going in Minnesota, then help people in other states stand up their own efforts. But, most importantly, they want Biden to act. And they believe the only way they can get him to listen now is through their votes.A win for the uncommitted campaign would be a permanent ceasefire, Mohammed said.“We don’t want any more empty claims,” she said. “Another win for us is that this will embolden some of our members of Congress and Senate to take action because there are a lot of them who have not been on the right side of this either, who have taken votes that have angered the community and have really been hurting their chances at re-election.”The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor party (DFL), the state’s Democratic party, has said it expects Biden to easily win the state. (Another Minnesotan, congressman Dean Phillips, is running for president and on the state’s presidential primary ballots, though his campaign has been virtually non-existent in the state in the lead-up to Super Tuesday.) The party’s chair, Ken Martin, has sought to remind voters of the contrast between Biden and Trump.After Minnesota’s vote on Tuesday, organizers here plan to share what they learn from the rapid move for an uncommitted campaign with other states. Already, Washington state has an uncommitted campaign underway that received an endorsement from the state’s United Food and Commercial Workers, its largest labor union.“This is a national movement,” Mohammed said. “It doesn’t stop with Michigan. It doesn’t stop with Minnesota. All of us have to be all in to get the attention of the president.” More

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      US supreme court to issue ruling as Trump Colorado ballot case looms

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      The US supreme court plans to issue at least one ruling on Monday, the day before Colorado holds a presidential primary election in which a lower court kicked Republican frontrunner Donald Trump off the ballot for taking part in an insurrection during the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack.The supreme court, in an unusual Sunday update to its schedule, did not specify what ruling it would issue. But the justices on 8 February heard arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling and are due to issue their own decision.Colorado is one of 15 states and a US territory holding primary elections on “Super Tuesday”. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 5 November election.The Republican party of Colorado has asked the supreme court, whose 6-3 conservative majority include three justices appointed by Trump, to rule before Tuesday in the ballot eligibility case.During arguments, supreme court justices signaled sympathy toward Trump’s appeal of a 19 December ruling by Colorado’s top court to disqualify him from the state’s ballot under the US constitution’s 14th amendment.Section 3 of the 14th amendment bars from holding public office any “officer of the United States” who took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.Trump supporters attacked police and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump gave an incendiary speech to supporters beforehand, telling them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell”. He then for hours rebuffed requests that he urge the mob to stop.Anti-Trump forces have sought to disqualify him in more than two dozen other states – a mostly unsuccessful effort – over his actions relating to the January 6 attack. Maine and Illinois also have barred Trump from their ballot, though both those decisions are on hold pending the supreme court’s Colorado ruling.During arguments in the Colorado case, supreme court justices – conservatives and liberals alike – expressed concern about states taking sweeping actions that could impact a presidential election nationwide.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThey pondered how states can properly enforce the section 3 disqualification language against candidates, with several wondering whether Congress must first pass legislation do enable that. More

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      Donald Trump confuses Joe Biden and Barack Obama again at Virginia rally – video

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      Donald Trump confused Barack Obama for Joe Biden at a rally in Virginia, triggering further questions about the age of the likely Republican presidential nominee who has made a string of such gaffes. Trump said: ‘Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word’. The crowd reportedly went silent as Trump referenced Obama, who left office more than seven years ago. It was the third time Trump had made the same blunder in the past six months More

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      Majority of voters think Biden is too old to be effective president, new poll says

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      A majority of voters in the US believe Joe Biden is just too old to be an effective president, according to a new poll by the New York Times and Siena College.According to the poll’s results, 73% of all registered voters believe Biden is too old to be effective, in turn revealing spreading concerns about the 81-year-old president’s mental competency.Among those who voted for Biden in 2020, 61% believe Biden’s age will make him an ineffective president for a second term, with 26% indicating that they strongly agree and 35% indicating that they somewhat agree.The results of the wide-ranging poll, which were first released Friday, are the latest blow to Biden’s election campaign which has faced a barrage of criticism centered around Biden’s age and widespread voters’ fears about his ability to be president.At 81, Biden is the oldest president ever to seek re-election, though his likely challenger, Donald Trump, is only four years younger. However, in much recent polling Biden is usually trailing to Trump and he also faces high disapproval ratings.In response to whether Biden’s age is such a problem that he is not capable of handling the job of president, 45% of total registered voters agreed in the latest New York Times/Siena study. Among those that voted for Biden four years ago, 19% said they agreed with the statement.Meanwhile, across all registered voters, 26% expressed that while Biden’s age makes him ineffective, he is still able to handle the job of president well enough. Among those that voted for him in 2020, 41% agreed with the statement.In comparison to Biden, 42% of all registered voters believe Trump is just too old to be an effective president. Among those that voted for Trump in 2020, 5% indicated that they strongly agree while 9% said they somewhat agree.Across all registered voters, 21% believe that the 77-year-old former president’s age makes him ineffective but he is still able to handle the job well enough while only 19% said they believe Trump’s age is such a problem that he is not capable of handling the job.In response to the latest poll, Biden’s campaign communication manager Michael Tyler said that polling “consistently overestimates” Donald Trump while underestimating Biden, Politico reported.“Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden,” Tyler told the outlet.Tyler added: “Whether it’s in special elections or in the presidential primaries, actual voter behavior tells us a lot more than any poll does and it tells a very clear story: Joe Biden and Democrats continue to outperform while Donald Trump and the party he leads are weak, cash-strapped, and deeply divided. Our campaign is ignoring the noise and running a strong campaign to win – just like we did in 2020.”The new poll comes on the heels of a Bloomberg News and Morning Consult study released last month which found Biden lagging behind Trump in key swing states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to that poll, 82% of voters in key swing states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin believe that Biden is too old.The poll also found a majority of voters, including 28% of those who plan to vote for him in November, expressing the belief that Trump is dangerous, particularly as Trump ramps up his extremist attacks amid his growing legal battles and attempts to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.In a chilling speech delivered at CPAC last weekend, Trump vowed his “ultimate and absolute revenge” and declared himself a “proud political dissident”, promising “judgment day” for his political opponents.Despite the rise in Trump’s extremism, concerns appear to still largely surround Biden’s age and efficacy. A separate poll conducted by Gallup last month found that Biden’s approval rating was at 38%, marking a three-percentage point drop from January, while 59% of surveyed adults indicated disapproval towards the president.Amid growing concerns surrounding Biden’s age and mental competency, special counsel Robert Hur called the president an “elderly man with a poor memory” in a 388-page report released last month on Biden’s retention of classified material.In response, Biden defended his memory in a fiery speech in which he adamantly said, “My memory is fine.” More

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      Trump confuses Obama for Biden again at Virginia rally speech

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      Donald Trump confused Barack Obama for Joe Biden at a rally in Virginia on Saturday, triggering further questions about the age of the likely Republican presidential nominee who has made a string of such gaffes.It also comes at a time of similar concerns about the Biden. At 77 and 81 respectively, Trump and Biden are the oldest people to run for the presidency in US history.“Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word. You heard that. Nuclear. He’s starting to talk nuclear weapons today,” said Trump, on Saturday night in Richmond.The crowd reportedly went silent as the Trump referenced Obama, who left office more than seven years ago. It’s the third time Trump has made the blunder in the past six months.The former US president’s other gaffes include confusing his Republican rival Nikki Haley with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.Haley, 52, who has defied Trump and several primary defeats to continue in the race for the Republican nomination, has tried to frame herself as the younger, healthier option – referring to Trump and Biden as Grumpy Old Men in her campaign ads.Trump’s mistake came the day after Biden, twice confused Ukraine and Gaza as he announced that the US would airdrop humanitarian supplies to Palestinians in Gaza who are dying of starvation due to the Israeli bombardment and blockades.“In the coming days, we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others who are providing airdrops of additional food and supplies into Ukraine,” Biden said on Friday. The US will “seek to open up other avenues into Ukraine, including possibly a marine corridor”, he added.A White House official later clarified that Biden meant Gaza – not Ukraine. The gaffe had been changed in the transcript of his remarks.Questions about Biden’s age have intensified in recent months.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe latest lapse came days after was declared “fit for duty” at his annual health check. White House physician Dr Kevin O’Connor said Biden “fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations”.A new New York Times/Siena College poll found that 73% of registered voters polled believe Biden is too old to be an effective president, including 61% of those who voted for him in 2020. Voters seem less bothered about Trump, who is just four years younger, with 42% of those polled saying he “just too old” to be an effective president.While criticisms of the age issue on both sides are laced with political spin, age-related cognitive decline is real.As a person gets older, changes occur in all parts of the body including the brain. According to the National Institute on Aging (NIA) certain parts of the brain shrink, including those important to learning and other complex mental activities; communication between neurons may be less effective; and blood flow in the brain may decrease.Healthy older adults can however learn new skills, form new memories, improve vocabulary and language skills. The NIA is conducting research on so-called cognitive super-agers, the minority of octogenarians and nonagenarians whose memories are comparable to people 20 to 30 years younger. More

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      Nikki Haley declines to say she would endorse Trump if he wins nomination

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      Nikki Haley on Sunday declined to say she would support Donald Trump in the coming presidential election if he won the Republican party’s nomination to face Joe Biden in the race for the White House.The former South Carolina governor is the last serious opposition to Trump who seems almost certain to become the nominee, despite a raft of legal problems and the multiple trials he faces linked to his businesses, attempts to subvert American democracy and alleged hush money pay-offs to former lovers.Trump has swept the Republican contest so far and maintains a dominant lead across the country ahead of Super Tuesday.Earlier in the race all Republican candidates were required by the Republican National Committee to pledge loyalty to the winning eventual candidate as a requirement to taking part in the party’s televised debates – which Trump himself refused to participate in.In an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press show on Sunday Haley acknowledged making the pledge of loyalty but said she did not feel bound by it anymore. In recent weeks the RNC has been hit by turmoil and a change in leadership to make it more pro-Trump.“The RNC is now not the same RNC,” Haley said.When asked directly on the show if she would endorse Trump were she not to be the nominee Haley did not answer but instead insisted that she has “serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.”Haley’s ailing attempt to stop Trump securing the Republican presidential nomination got a recent vital boost with the endorsement of two senior senators who have given the former South Republican governor their backing ahead of Super Tuesday’s crucial contests.Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Main have both now endorsed Haley’s bid.“America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next president – and in this race, there is no one better than her [Haley’],” Murkowski said in a statement.She added: “Nikki will be a strong leader and uphold the ideals of the Republican party while serving as a President for all Americans.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, Collins told the Bangor News that she had voted for Haley in the Maine primary, saying Hayley was “extremely well-qualified” to be the first female president.“She has the energy, intellect, and temperament that we need to lead our country in these very tumultuous times,” Collins said in a statement to the outlet.Collins and Murkowski are now part of a very small group of Republican lawmakers to have spurned Trump in favor of Haley. Trump’s grip on the wider Republican party remains firm as he consolidates his overwhelming lead in the race and he has already mostly focused his campaign targeting president Joe Biden. More

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      ‘He believes in power and chaos’: alarm as Steve Bannon plots to propel Trump

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      Wearing an olive green jacket over a black shirt, Steve Bannon blew the doors off a subject that most other speakers had tiptoed around. “Media, I want you to suck on this, I want the White House to suck on this: you lost in 2020!” he roared. “Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States!”A thrill of transgression swept through the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “Trump won!” Bannon barked, pointing a finger. “Trump won!” he repeated, shaking a fist. “Trump won!” he proclaimed again. His audience, as if hypnotised, chanted the brazen lie in unison.It was a blunt reminder that Bannon, an architect of Trumpism variously compared to Thomas Cromwell, Rasputin and Joseph Goebbels, remains a potent force in American politics as the 2024 US presidential election looms into view and the re-election of Trump looks a clear possibility.The former White House chief strategist may not be in daily contact with Trump any more but it scarcely matters: he is a vital source for the far-right ecosystem that shapes and animates the “Make America great again” (Maga) base.Bannon, 70, is currently appealing a criminal conviction and four-month prison sentence for defying a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The committee heard evidence that Trump spoke to Bannon at least twice on January 5 and predicted that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow”.In the meantime, he hosts a regular podcast called War Room, which propagates false narratives about the 2020 election and coronavirus vaccines but is given a veneer of respectability by guests including Elise Stefanik, the No 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, and other senior politicians.A pop-up War Room studio commanded a prime location at CPAC last week and featured guests such as Liz Truss, the former British prime minister. On the main stage, Bannon compared Trump to the Roman general Cincinnatus and declared: “His fate and destiny is to have the greatest political comeback in American history from November 5 to drive the vermin out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.“Biden, you and your crime family are nothing but trash, OK? And on 20 January of 2025 we’re going to take out the trash.”The Maga-regalia wearing crowd went wild, cementing Bannon’s status as a tribune of the movement heading into the 2024 presidential election.Charlie Sykes, a political commentator and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: “At the moment Steve Bannon is the id of the American right and, if we’ve learned anything in the last eight years, it’s don’t assume because somebody sounds extreme and unhinged that they will not be influential in this party.”Sykes makes an analogy with drug dealers competing with each other by selling purer and stronger forms of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant. “Steve Bannon is still peddling the most powerful meth out there.“Donald Trump does not look at Steve Bannon and think this guy is unhinged; he’s looking at Steve Bannon and saying this is exactly what I want to hear from my supporters. Steve Bannon knows what he’s doing and he will act as a gravitational pull on the rest of the right because they have to match him.”Unkempt and unpolished, Bannon is the opposite of a career politician. He is a former naval officer, Goldman Sachs investment banker and film producer. He was executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as “the platform of the ‘alt-right’”, a movement that has embraced racism and antisemitism, and became chairman of Trump’s 2016 winning election campaign.His tenure at the White House was short and acrimonious as he clashed with the president’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, who later described him as a “toxic” presence who accused him of “undermining the president’s agenda”. Trump himself may have been piqued by how much media attention Bannon was receiving and eventually branded him “Sloppy Steve”.But his ideas have proved harder to kill. Bannon continues to advocate the “deconstruction of the administrative state”, a radical downsizing of federal government bureaucracy, and an isolationist “America first” policy that he insists would keep the country out of a third world war. Such notions are percolating through to Republicans in Congress who oppose further military aid to Ukraine.Bannon also helps set the narrative on Trump’s signature issue, border security, blaming undocumented immigrants for crime, even thought studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than other US residents, and advocating mass deportations as a solution.Bannon argues that biggest losers from the record influx of immigrants is the Black and Latino working class. “Every Black person, every Hispanic person in our country, vote for Trump,” Bannon said at CPAC last Saturday. “Trump will set you free because right now they’re enslaving you.”He then assured his overwhelmingly white audience: “They call you racist, they call you xenophobic, they call you nativist. Nothing could be further from the truth because they can’t win the intellectual argument. What they have to do is try to smear you and you don’t care because you know that’s not true.”Bannon has a sign on his mantelpiece that says, “There are no conspiracies but there are no coincidences” – placing him in a twilight zone between conspiracy theories and otherwise. War Room is his biggest mouthpiece. Last year a study by the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington found that almost 20% of its episodes contained a false, misleading or unsubstantiated statement, making it a bigger disinformation spreader than any other political podcast.Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings fellow who led the research, said War Room had been one of the most prominent platforms for election denialism even after networks such as Fox News pulled back. “The way he approaches things that are more conspiratorial in nature… he’s quite effective at considering the questions in a way that makes the audience think it’s not immediately evident that he’s confirming them. There’s this idea that he seems to be hearing all sides of the conversation.”As America braces for another divisive and volatile election, longtime Trump critics warn that Bannon still casts a long shadow. Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said: “Steve Bannon is a if not the primary spiritual and intellectual force of this nationalist movement that is in control of the Republican party.“He is a very powerful figure in today’s GOP [Grand Old Party] and it is inescapable in some ways that he will play a central role in whatever Trump administration emerges if Trump wins. He is the architect. As an avowed Leninist, he is a guy who is trying to engineer the revolution in his image.”Asked what a Bannon return to the White House would mean, Wilson replied: “Concentration camps. This guy keeps saying out loud they’re the enemies of the people, our opponents are deserve what they get, this hyperbolic rhetoric. He believes in power and chaos and will do whatever he can if he gets it. Whatever he could get away with in that circumstance, he will get away with it.”Bannon has spent years courting far-right nationalist movements around the world and the results were on vivid display at CPAC. Nigel Farage, a former leader of the Brexit party in Britain, observed that a decade ago he was the sole foreign-born speaker at the conference but now it has become a hub for populists from countries including Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Hungary and Spain.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “To his credit, and to America’s detriment, he was one of the first people to look outside of the American political system to find like minded public high-profile figures in foreign counties like Nigel Farage to play an outsized role in being messengers.”Truss, who was removed as prime minister after just 50 days, found common cause with Bannon in blaming a “deep state” supposedly dominated by the left. Bardella, a former Breitbart News spokesperson and Republican congressional aide, added: “For people like Farage and Liz Truss, Bannon extends to them a second lease on life. They’ve peaked in terms of their public service career; there’s nothing left for them to be able to realistically attain.“Here comes Bannon with this direct line to one of the two most powerful forces in American politics in Donald Trump: we will elevate you, you will have status, you will have the perception of influence, you again will be an influencer. These people are desperate for relevancy Bannon is giving them that combination of relevancy and legitimacy and access to power.” More