President Trump‘s former chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon says he is setting up a political foundation in Europe in the hopes of swinging power across the continent in favor of right-leaning nationalist parties such as France’s National Front, recently renamed to National Rally.
Bannon told the Daily Beast that his forthcoming Europe-based group, called The Movement, will likely be headquartered in Brussels and is meant to counter the influence of liberal billionaire George Soros and to encourage coordination between Europe’s various nationalist parties.
“It was so successful that we’re going to start staffing up,” Bannon said. “Everybody agrees that next May is hugely important, that this is the real first continent-wide face-off between populism and the party of Davos. This will be an enormously important moment for Europe.”
“Soros is brilliant,” he added. “He’s evil but he’s brilliant.”
Bannon pointed to Europe’s relatively lower cost of doing politics compared to the United States as one reason why he was optimistic about finding success in the region. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]“Nick Cooke, owner of Black Swan Books on West Main Street in the Fan District, said Bannon was in the bookstore Saturday afternoon and that a woman confronted him, calling him a ‘piece of trash,’” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
“Cooke said he called 911 and that the woman left as he made the call.”
“Steve Bannon was simply standing, looking at books, minding his own business. I asked her to leave, and she wouldn’t. And I said, ‘I’m going to call the police if you don’t,’ and I went to call the police and she left,” Cooke told the paper.
“And that’s the end of the story.”
Perhaps the most uplifting thing, however, was Cooke’s defense of what the bookstore stands for.
“We are a bookshop. Bookshops are all about ideas and tolerating different opinions and not about verbally assaulting somebody, which is what was happening,” Cooke said.
Richmond police confirmed that a call was made around 3:15 on Saturday afternoon but was cancelled before policemen could respond to the location. – READ MORE
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