Breitbart editor-in-chief calls Steve Bannon’s ‘cool’ new role ‘not bad for a good ol’ boy’

In the days following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the public is beginning to get a look into the group of top advisers that will surround him.

While there has been much speculation as to the roles of certain so-called Trump loyalists, perhaps the most fascinating character people have been watching is Stephen K. Bannon, the former Breitbart News executive chairman and host of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily.

In August, Bannon “temporarily stepp[ed] down from his role with Breitbart News to work full-time on Mr. Trump’s campaign” during which time Breitbart News’ editor-in-chief Alexander Marlow took over hosting duties on Breitbart News Daily.

Marlow was quick to praise his former boss following Sunday’s announcement of Bannon’s role in the Trump administration.

“Donald Trump has named our very own Steve Bannon White House chief strategist. How cool is this title — chief strategist and senior counselor to the president. Cool, huh? Not bad, not bad for a good ol’ boy,” Marlow said Monday.

He added, “When Steve’s in the room, Steve’s voice will be heard. And I think this is a great thing. I think this is a great thing for the base. And I think the way that they laid it out it does feel like something that Steve would’ve designed himself.”

Marlow also expressed his belief — having known and worked with Bannon — that Reince Preibus‘ appointment as chief of staff was a “PR move.”

While individuals like Marlow are praising the selection of Bannon as a top White House personnel, others — especially on the more progressive side — have a different reaction to the addition of the “alt right” to the administration.

“It’s one thing for Steve Bannon to host here on SiriusXM — and we would see him every morning, right? We worked in the same hallway and we were perfectly cordial and polite to each other,” Ari Rabin-Havt saidMonday.

He added, “The selection of Steve Bannon in the David Axelrod role in this administration — it was like when they selected a chief of staff and it was Reince Priebus and people were like, ‘Oh, phew, Reince Priebus is chief of staff.’ It just shows how much our minds are shifting in this administration.”

Rabin-Havt summed up his feelings about Bannon’s appointment in a quote from the Anti-Defamation League, a group founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of ADL, wrote, “It is a sad day when a man [Steve Bannon] who presided over the premier website of the ‘alt-right’ — a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists — is slated to be a senior staff member in the ‘people’s house,'”

“I don’t know what’s in Steve Bannon’s heart today,” Rabin-Havt continued. “That’s never the point. This is somebody who in court papers is quoted saying he doesn’t want his children going to school with whiny Jews, basically saying he doesn’t like them.”

“What does that say about the man who is going to be one step away from the Oval Office, about the man who in an administration already proving to opaque with Donald Trump sitting up in Trump Tower kind of not coming out, not really talking — we already have what is the most opaque transition process in history and as part of that opaque process is a guy like Steve Bannon, whose philosophies and what he did at Breitbart, he wants to do to this country, that’s scary.”

Breitbart News Daily airs weekdays at 6 am ET on SiriusXM Patriot (Ch. 125)

The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt airs weekdays at 6 am ET on SiriusXM Progress (Ch. 127)

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