Tag: wayne allyn root
Steve Bannon

Trump For House Speaker Is A Bannon Brainstorm

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters

Following former President Donald Trump's June 4 remark that the idea of becoming speaker of the House after the 2022 midterm election is "very interesting" to him, political media has been abuzz with speculation. The idea has been making rounds in right-wing spheres in various iterations since January, when it was first championed by former White House chief strategist, election conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, and enchanted pile of dirty laundry Steve Bannon.

On January 21, conservative influencer Rogan O'Handley, who goes by "DC Draino" online, appeared on Bannon's show War Room: Pandemic to discuss his tweet, in which he had proposed that "Trump run for Congress in Florida in '22" and become speaker of the House, after which he can "impeach Kamala" -- a remark that suggests Biden would not be president in 2023.


During the show, Bannon effusively praised O'Handley's idea. He said the possibility of Trump, the only former president to incite an insurrection, becoming speaker in 2023 means "we don't have to wait until 2024 to have a presidential election. This nationalizes the midterm elections" and "gives a unifying message" for Trump's base to rally around.

Bannon also correctly noted that Trump could be elected speaker without being a member of Congress, and he endorsed focusing on winning "the House of Representatives, [which is] what thwarted Donald J. Trump" in his last two years in office. O'Handley implored Trump to not "let them end your presidency by what they did to you, get revenge plus take back the country." (Just over a month after this appearance, O'Handley was permanently banned from Twitter for "repeated violations of its civic integrity policy.")

In February, Bannon floated the idea in remarks he gave to the Boston area West Roxbury Ward 20 Republican Committee. According to the Boston Herald, Bannon said Trump's base will "totally get rid of" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the midterms "and the first act of President Trump as speaker will be to impeach Joe Biden for his illegitimate activities of stealing the presidency."

In April, right-wing publication the Washington Examiner ran a piece with the headline "Buzz: Trump for speaker and Pence unlikely to head Heritage." The opinion piece cited former CNN commentator Ed Martin, who said, "I'm serious. We need the Trump voters. … With the possibility of having Donald Trump as speaker, conservative voter turnout would be through the roof nationwide."

Trump's June 4 remarks to his friend and conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root calling the idea "very interesting" thrust the simmering rumor back into the spotlight. On June 5, Fox contributor Jason Chaffetz noted on Fox & Friends Weekend that "you don't need to be a member of Congress to be elected the speaker of the House," saying Trump becoming the speaker "would make for great TV."

On the morning of June 7, Fox Business' Stuart Varney asked Trump about a potential run in 2022, to which Trump said it was "highly unlikely" he would seek a seat in the House of Representatives.

Still, Bannon remains bullish on the idea. The same day as Trump's comment to Varney, Bannon appeared on right-wing radio personality John Fredericks' show and said, "Donald Trump will take over, at least on an interim basis, as speaker of the House to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi and then to gavel in the impeachment panel to impeach Joe Biden." He credited O'Handley for originating the idea and said, "I helped take it to the next level. He wanted him to run for Congress. You do not have to be a member of Congress to be speaker."

Steve Bannon Predicts Trump will Become U.S. House Speaker in 2023www.youtube.com

Not everyone in Trump's orbit is in line with Bannon's latest scheme. For his part, dirty trickster Roger Stone, who has despised Bannon for years, said in a video posted online on June 6, "So, sloppy Steve Bannon thinks that former President Trump should run for the House of Representatives, become speaker, and lead the impeachment of Joe Biden. Here's the problem with this plan: What happens if Trump himself is elected to Congress, but the feckless, gutless, weak-kneed Republicans fail to take a majority?"

Conservative Christians Openly Worship Blasphemous Idol

Conservative Christians Openly Worship Blasphemous Idol

President Donald J. Trump’s unhinged narcissism has bloomed into blasphemy. Earlier this week, Trump quoted approvingly a conspiracy theorist named Wayne Allyn Root who had compared the president to the supreme being.

Trump tweeted out a thank-you for Root’s “very nice words,” which the president quoted: “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world … and the Jewish people in Israel love him … like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God.”

That may have been the nadir of Trump’s fevered week of outlandish statements, head-spinning reversals and usual stream of loopy distortions of fact, incredible denials and outright lies. Many of us (unfortunately) have become inured to the president’s daily outrages; we have grown accustomed to his constant bullying, his racism, his xenophobia; we have adjusted to his nonsensical rants and war on facts.

Still, there is one group of his loyal supporters who should be unequivocally outraged by Trump’s blasphemy: conservative Christians. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and ultra-right theological institutions should have called press conferences, released fiery statements of disapproval, publicly called the president on the carpet. But there has been precious little of that. Franklin Graham, where are you?

There have been very few positive developments to come from the Trump administration, very little that has boosted civic life or fostered the values of democracy. But Trump has inadvertently made one contribution that will enhance the common good: He has stripped away the already-fraying mantle of moral superiority worn by political leaders of the Christian right. They can no longer be taken seriously as arbiters of morality or virtue.

The decline of the Christian right as a highly regarded political force has been a couple of decades in the making. Several of its leaders have been caught up in scandal. Georgia’s Ralph Reed, for example, never recovered his influence after federal investigators disclosed that he was secretly paid to lobby for one group of Native American casinos while publicly engaging conservative Christian organizations to act against a rival group. The Southern Baptist Convention finds itself in a long-overdue accounting for decades of sexual abuse by some of its pastors, many of whom preyed on young women while other church leaders turned a blind eye. Moreover, many millennials who grew up attending ultraconservative churches simply don’t agree with some of the tenets of their faith, such as the harsh opposition to same-sex marriage.

But it took religious fundamentalists’ enthusiastic embrace of Donald J. Trump — a twice-divorced adulterer and serial sexual molester who rarely sets foot in a church — to finally strip away its tattered veil of virtue. Graham, one of the most outspoken of conservative Christian leaders, is Trump’s toady, endorsing the president’s every act — no matter how vile, profane, cruel or racist — and asserting that Trump’s presidency is the will of God. After this, it will be very difficult to take him and his cohort seriously as religious leaders.

Their “Christianity” never represented the values of those who attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. When Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979, he launched a political movement that insinuated itself into the fabric of the Republican Party. He and his allies created a founding myth that associated the movement with the Christian right’s opposition to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, but the myth is just that. (It took Falwell six years to recognize his opposition to Roe?)

The truth is that Falwell and other leaders of the Christian right were furious with then-President Jimmy Carter, who would not allow their racism the imprimatur of federal government assistance. Some ultra-right Christian colleges were refusing to admit black students, and the Internal Revenue Service finally got tired of their obstinacy. In 1976, the IRS withdrew the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. (Its founder had claimed that the Bible endorsed segregation.) That is what motivated Falwell and his friends to start a political movement.

It’s past time for their influence to end.

Trump Promotes Conspiracy Theorist’s Claims About Jews

Trump Promotes Conspiracy Theorist’s Claims About Jews

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning promoted right-wing conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root’s claim that American Jews should be more appreciative of the president — like Israeli Jews are, Root said — because Trump is “the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world.” Trump also seemingly urged Fox News and other pro-Trump media outlets to cover the remarks.

Trump was widely condemned for his Tuesday afternoon claim that because some Democratic members of Congress have suggested cutting off aid to Israel and used anti-Semitic tropes, “Jewish people that vote for a Democrat” may be showing “great disloyalty.” Trump did not specify the subject of this purported disloyalty by the overwhelming majority of American Jews who support Democrats, but his claim echoed a longstanding and blood-soaked anti-Semitic trope that Jews practice “dual loyalty” to their home countries and to the Jewish people.

(Update: Asked to specify on Wednesday, Trump told reporters,  “If you vote for a Democrat, you’re being disloyal to Jewish people and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.” )

Trump doubled down on Wednesday morning, tweeting a lengthy quote from Newsmax TV host Wayne Allyn Root about the disparity between support for Trump among Israeli and American Jews. According to Root, who identifies as a “Jew turned evangelical Christian,” Jewish people in Israel love Trump “like he’s the King of Israel” or “the second coming of God,” while American Jews don’t “like him,” which “makes no sense.” Jews do not believe in a second coming.

He thanked Root “for the very nice words” and tagged the Twitter accounts of Newsmax, the Fox News program Fox & Friends, and the right-wing One America News Network in an apparent suggestion that they should cover the comments.

Root, a longtime conservative columnist and radio host, has promoted a wide range of false conspiracy theories, including that President Barack Obama attended Columbia University as a “foreign exchange student,” that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered by Democrats because he provided DNC files to WikiLeaks, that progressive donor George Soros hired the murderer of Charlottesville, VA, rally victim Heather Heyer, and that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2015 Obamacare ruling might have been the result of him being “blackmailed or intimidated.”

Root has nonetheless received direct access to Trump and his family, whom he has partied with at the president’s Mar-A-Lago resort.

Root, made the comments on Tuesday night’s edition of his show.