Speaking to a religious conservative audience at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Saturday, Steve Bannon called for “a season of war against [the] GOP establishment” and said: “This is our war. The establishment started it … You all are gonna finish it.”
Bannon, who left the White House in August and returned to the hard-right Breitbart News website, added: “Up on Capitol Hill it’s like the Ides of March. The only question – and this is just an analogy or metaphor, or whatever you want to call it – they’re just looking to find out who’s going to be Brutus to [McConnell’s] Julius Caesar.”
Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by Brutus on 15 March in the year 44BC, on the steps of the Senate in Rome. Bannon’s remarks were lent a dash of irony when considered in light of rightwing protests this summer over a Shakespeare in the Park production of the play Julius Caesar, in which the assassinated emperor was made to resemble Trump.
More prosaically, Bannon is working to mount primary challenges against establishment figures including McConnell. On Saturday he singled out John Barrasso of Wyoming, Deb Fischer of Nebraska and Dean Heller of Nevada for not siding with Trump in an exchange of insults with Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who is not seeking re-election in 2018.
Trump remains close to Bannon and blames McConnell for a stalled legislative agenda that includes repeated failures to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, despite Republican control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. The two men will meet at the White House. Vice-President Mike Pence – reportedly a mediator in Trump’s recent disputes with secretary of state Rex Tillerson – will also attend.
“Mitch McConnell’s not our problem,” Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina who co-sponsored one of the failed healthcare bills, told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday. “Our problem is that we promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, and we failed. We promised to cut taxes and we have yet to do it.
“If we’re successful, Mitch McConnell’s fine. If we’re not, we’re all in trouble. We lose our majority and I think President Trump will not get re-elected [in 2020].”
Susan Collins, a Maine moderate who cast pivotal votes against the Senate healthcare bills, told ABC’s This Week the US was tired of Bannon’s political warfare. “They don’t want this hyper-partisanship,” she said. “They want us to work together. And they want us to get things done.
“Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority leader. The president needs him. I’m glad they’re working together on tax reform and a lot of other issues. And I’m glad they’re meeting this week.”
This summer, McConnell responded to Trump’s Twitter attacks over the failed healthcare bills by saying the challenges of governing should come as no surprise.
“A lot of people look at all that and find it frustrating, messy,” he said at a Republican event in his home state, Kentucky. “Well, welcome to the democratic process. That’s the way it is in our country.”
Such words would not find favour with the president’s support base, to which Bannon is addressing his “war” rhetoric and which in the election responded eagerly to Trump’s talk of “draining the swamp” of Washington.
In September, Trump cut a deal with Democratic leaders on raising the debt limit and keeping the government running. He has talked about other deals, though his list of immigration demands outraged Democrats who had sensed an opening for progress on the status of Dreamers, young undocumented migrants brought to the US as children whose legal protection has been rescinded by Trump.
Hard-right conservatives wrote in a letter last week during a Senate break that McConnell and his leadership team should step aside. The Senate recess also drew criticism from the White House.
“They’re on another vacation right now,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “I think that we would all be a lot better off if the Senate would stop taking vacations and start staying here until we actually get some real things accomplished.”
Trump spent the weekend at the White House but played golf at his course in Virginia both days. Graham played with him on Saturday and Rand Paul, the other senator from Kentucky, teed off with the president on Sunday.
The split between the conservative establishment and hardline insurgents has already been tested at the ballot box. A McConnell-backed political committee spent millions supporting the Alabama senator Luther Strange in a recent primary. Strange was endorsed by Trump but the lost to Roy Moore, who was endorsed by Bannon.
Moore is a former judge twice removed from his state’s supreme court. Among many controversial acts and statements he has defied federal court orders, described Islam as a false religion and called homosexuality evil.
Senate Republicans had been upbeat about adding to their 52-48 majority, especially as Democrats must defend more seats next year – 10 in states Trump won. But Bannon’s challengers could hurt such hopes, defeating incumbents in primaries or leaving GOP candidates damaged before the midterm election.
Some Democrats think that thanks to the selection of Moore, they may even have a chance of taking a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama.
“If we don’t cut taxes and we don’t eventually repeal and replace Obamacare, then we’re going to lose across the board in the House in 2018,” said Graham. “And all of my colleagues running in primaries in 2018 will probably get beat. It will be the end of Mitch McConnell as we know it. So this is a symptom of a greater problem.”
Bannon “can’t beat us if we’re successful”, Graham said. “And if we’re not successful, it doesn’t matter who tries to beat us, they’ll be successful.”
