Washington – House Democrats Urge Trump To Drop Bannon

Washington – House Democrats have sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump asking him to rescind the appointment of Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon as a senior White House adviser.

The letter, which has signatures from 169 out of the 188 Democrats in the House, says the appointment of conservative flame-thrower Bannon undermines Trump’s ability to unite the country. It points out stories from the website that are derogatory toward Jews and Muslims, among other groups.

“Millions of Americans have expressed fear and concern about how they will be treated by the Trump Administration and your appointment of Mr. Bannon only exacerbates and validates their concerns,” the letter reads.

Rep. David N. Cicilline, D-R.I, organized the effort. “Bigotry, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia should have no place in our society,” he said.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called concerns about Bannon “very unfair.”

“I promise you he’s not as scary” as people said, Conway said on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday.

If history is any guide, Bannon won’t be putting those fears to rest anytime soon. As a conservative media brawler who became Trump’s campaign chief executive, Bannon has discarded norms for discussing race, gender and religion, often framing even abstract political fights in deliberately inflammatory terms.

After Breitbart died unexpectedly in 2012, Bannon took the helm of a relaunch of his news site. Breitbart grew quickly, from 12 million monthly page views to more than 192 million by August of this year, according to the site.

In interviews, Bannon has acknowledged that the alt-right may attract some racists, homophobes and anti-Semites, but said that he does not share those opinions — and that the left harbors undesirable elements as well.

Yet Breitbart actively cultivates some of those themes, and Bannon has shown little patience for adjusting the site’s tone to pacify critics.

During the campaign — a period in which Bannon stepped aside from running the site — Breitbart.com sometimes went out of its way to identify Trump critics as Jews.

“I’ve known and worked with Steve Bannon, and he has traditional conservative non-racist, non-prejudiced views about the world,” said Joel Pollak, a senior editor at large at Breitbart, who called The Associated Press in response to a request for comment from Bannon on this story. “Lately, media conventions have determined that some of the traditional views of most of Western civilization are offensive.”

Bannon has publicly disavowed tolerance for prejudice.

Such opinions make Bannon an odd pairing with Reince Priebus, the Republican chairman whom Trump has named his chief of staff. Senior members of Trump’s camp have downplayed the prospects for conflict.

“When you’re out there just criticizing, it’s one thing,” Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani said. “When you actually get on the inside, there’s a certain weight of responsibility to the American people that is on your shoulders. And I think Steve Bannon is the kind of guy who gets that.”