Steve Bannon debate at The Economist #OpenFutures festival

so steve bannon you have called us the enemy you have a very different world view to ours that's exactly as i just explained why we asked you to come here what i want to do in the next few minutes is to really try and understand your worldview your populist nationalism and why you think it is a better route forward for societies today and i want to start with one of the cornerstones of this populist nationalism of yours which is immigration you want to crack down on illegal immigration but you also want to radically reduce legal immigration you are of irish and german stock your forefathers came to this country as immigrants so can you explain to me why you now think this country's future no longer lies in being welcoming to immigrants well i didn't say it was uh not welcoming about immigration you know when this idea came up of what the context of the trump campaign was going to be is in 2013 with jeff sessions and i said what we have to do early 2017 at 13 was to say we have to take trade right the paramouncy of free trade we have to take that from number 100 to number two in issues and immigration from number two or three to number one because illegal immigration and these trade deals are just two sides of the same time immigration i'm gonna get to i'm gonna get to legal immigration to suppress workers wages okay the the cotton bill that is the one we support the raise act i think still allows 500 000 people uh to come into the country every year well so i'm not against totally stopping legal immigration what i've said on that hang on hb1 visas and you know excess immigration is to limit that so that we can have our african comm african-american our hispanic and working-class community can finally start to get jobs in the high-tech space illegal immigration and legal immigration are nothing more exactly what the bad trade deals is to suppress workers wages of all races increased i would absolutely disagree because if you look at this country foreign entrepreneurs create 25 of new companies in this country foreign more than half of american big tech companies are founded either by immigrants or the children of immigrants immigration in this country has led to more jobs more innovation more entrepreneurship by cutting legal immigration you are cutting a source of growth and prosperity you are going to hurt the prospects of the very people you're trying to help the merit-based raise act will cover that until we start to get full employment instead the the issues in inner city st louis inner city baltimore we changed the entire education system over to stem science technology engineering math yet we can't get hispanics and african-americans into engineering schools and they can't get to silicon valley until we start to restrict immigration and on a merit-based system those entrepreneurs will get here okay on a merit-based system that allows the entrepreneurs come and allows the growth but takes care of our citizens remember economic nationalism doesn't care about your race doesn't care about your ethnicity doesn't care about your religion doesn't care about your gender doesn't care about your sexual preference it cares that you're a citizen say that a citizen a citizen of the united states of america it's time that we look out for our citizens you you you you that phrase that you have just uh said you say many times and i'd actually like to pray because it's the beating heart it's the beating heart of economic nationalism yes and i'd like to press you on that because i want to be quite clear on something are you very clear that there is you make no distinction between the race or the religion of immigrants absolutely not okay you make no distinction on that many of the people who you advise and you consult with in europe do make that distinction matteo salvini the deputy prime minister of italy and the first big political figure to join your new movement in italy he has said he wants to carry out a census of the roma which is a long persecuted minority group in europe and he then went on to say unfortunately we have to keep the italian ones victor orban the president of hungary has said we do not want to be a multi-colored country he has called refugees quote muslim invaders these are the people who are your supporters in europe they are very clearly basing immigration or leo racist yes they said that's what i said they did orban salvini the rest of this populist nationalist movement outside of things like golden dawn and jobic are not ethno-nationalist what salvini was saying about the roma is that it's a way to get the children into the school system it's a way to it's a way to take future generations let's find you just can't have the roma where the the children aren't getting educated they're not into the health care system you have to look with these people are trying to make their countries better they're trying to make their citizens you are not willing to condemn those statements of what those people say i don't i'd have to be familiar with the statements i certainly do i certainly do not condemn victor orban and salvini these two individuals these two individuals are saving their countries and that's why and that's why they have support and their coalitions have support of two-thirds of the population that's right that's right that's why i think you are a racist because you may not be yourself but you refuse to condemn people who are clear victor orban is not a racist and salvinia is not a racist and by the way the two-thirds of the people in hungary and the two-thirds of the people in italy that support that coalition they're not racist and they're tired of being called races they're not racist they're people that want to look out for their countries these are some of the most giving people in the world let's um let's think about what by the way i think i find i find it a fun defense i i i want to put this and you are a student of history you're very well known to someone who's who's widely read when you look at what happened in europe in the 1920s and 30s don't you think you are playing with fire pandering to these people this is not pandering these people what you have in europe is what you have in the united states the united states what we had in the reason for the trump revolution the trump populist revolt your beloved you know post-war liberal rules-based order what i call what your magazine or your newspaper has a fetish for okay forgets we'll get on to that in a second hang on hang on hey forgets that it is a system of commercial relationships trade deals capital markets and the subject mr bannon i asked you about whether you did not worry about the consequences of pandering and let me just tell you it does not mean ben shapiro you know benjamin former colleague of yours at breitbart said and i quote steve bannon is happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them it's not just me who says that broadly you are seen to be pandering to the far right racist if you said now you could not absolutely do not condemn victor orban and what victor irvine and his party stands for what they ran on and what they're doing in hungary i do not condemn what salvini stood for ran on and what he's doing in his country these individuals and these populist nationalist movements across europe okay are trying to are trying to get the sovereignty of their countries back okay and save their citizenship sovereignty which i might add in the and i don't want to digress the 10 736 word essay in this newspaper this week to commemorate the 16th 175th anniversary it's amazing everybody should read it but i just want to mention some words you do not mention at all in 10 000. sovereignty terror terrorism jihad crime defense trade deficit income inequality or radical islam well i'm very glad you've read it so carefully um i'm impressed because it's detached from reality it's detached from reality just like you're trying to smear you were sitting here trying to smear or bond in salvini on on a couple of quotes that has enjoyed the great longest period of peace since 1945 that it has had in previous centuries and i look back at the history of europe my mother is german my father is english i am very very aware of european history and i am concerned that your view because of an american security guarantee if you don't make it american absolutely it's on the shoulders of the deplorables oh by the way that's another that's another word not mentioned in the 10 736 deplorables whose shoulders upon which everything rest it's their tax dollars and their kids that saved europe three times in world war one and world war ii and the cold war and we'll end up saving it again i think we have a clear view on what your your perspective is on immigration and what your perspective is of your of your people in europe who whom you admire let's move on to trade because that's another area i think where you and i have a very different world view in fact in this ten thousand seven hours they they throw was it the the end of history guy gets thrown under the bus even their their their uh policy on immigration gets thrown under the bus there's policy to support the iraq war gets stoned on the bus the only thing they count paramount now is free trade free trade is everything that's the new fetish so let's talk about it let's talk about your new facebook i think you read the essay too fast because you clearly missed quite a lot that was in there but let's just uh let's i spent quite a long time writing let's um let's focus on trade because i want to understand whether you think higher tariffs are a negotiating tool or whether you think that the country would really be better off if it had tired tariffs and i just want to you were recently asked about this and this is what you said you were asked what tariffs were good for the economy you said 100 good for the economy they're great for the economy it's going to rebuild our economy it's going to bring our manufacturing base back so do you think america's future is best secured by having high tariffs yes what i think is that tariffs are a means to an end what we're doing right now you can see this and this is why the economy is on fire and this is why uh blue-collar wages are going to start to come back manufacturing jobs you're seeing a reorientation of the world's global supply chain away from china of which the elites who were all cheerleaders for china that china was as they rose they were going to get more liberal more free market they were dead wrong okay what china is is a not an ill liberal you say keep saying ill liberal party dictatorship it is it is a it is a totalitarian mercantilist regime that is every bit as evil to its core as the fascist regimes in the military in japan in the 1930s and you played into their hands one of the reasons they are where they are is because of you what trump and the populist nationalists are saying we need to get the manufacturing jobs and take the supply chain back from china that is why korea that is why japan that is why the populist leftist socialist in mexico has joined in and juncker in the eu have all joined in to join with trump trump and these trade deals yeah and these trade deals are reorganized so yes if if higher tariffs lead to that then they're good well you have you've made that point clear and aware i think if you'd actually and it sounds like you must have read some of this quite quickly we've we've made a very similar point about china where i think we differ is on whether it is the right strategy for this country to have high tariffs in the long term and you appear to think that high tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs and i think it is very hard to find a single economist who shares that view just let me finish what high tariffs will do they are not the reason this economy is growing fast right now the tax cut has much more to do with it what tariffs do is that they raise the price for consumers they make it raise the price for people who use imported goods and they do not really bring back jobs because even if let's say apple brings back the production of the iphone here they will not bring back a lot of jobs they will do it all through much more capital intensive investment so if you're worried it's more inextricably linked it's more inextricably linked than tariffs you know that when trump was at the g7 and they had that first day blow up and you saw the picture with merkel and macron and everybody looking down on him like he's the uh he's the the school boy who can't quite learn his lessons right done do his homework the next day he walked in there to the meeting he said okay here's the deal zero tariffs no tariffs but no subsidies remember non-trade barriers it's the state-owned industries that china is investing in okay that china has exported its deflation and export its excess capacity that's why brexit in 2016 exist that's why donald trump with and we're on the 10th anniversary today of the financial collapse the financial collapse brought on by the party of davis in this audience and this magazine hang on and and the rise of china at the same time all on the backs of working men and women of every race every ethnicity every religion in this country and the west you're spending a lot of time i'm not that's the beating heart you talk about you talk about just tariffs it's more complicated than that it's also by the way we would go to zero tariffs of china tomorrow morning we've told them that if you go to the white house and look at the 50 other things they do that's exactly what i started this conversation with i wanted to understand whether you thought saw tariffs as a negotiating tactic or as a permanent arrangement that would help the united states what you said in previous interviews suggested the latter now it seems that you are saying that tariffs are simply a negotiating tactic no no we need to move on hang on no i don't make sure it's not a contradiction if we need tariffs ongoing to protect certain industries i have no problem with tariffs as long it's in the protection of the american workers and not the the american workers and not the capitalists no you're a protector of the capitalist i'm a protector of the workers no you're not you're not you're a full siren for the worker you're pretending that you're doing that's why the workers vote for us that's why the workers vote for us not no no they work because you engender a sense of fear and divisive it's called the rational human beings they are rational human beings we're just going to have to differ on what rational human beings a rational human being a racial human can look at facts can look at facts and understand what's going on yes that's that's what we try to do weekly because he keeps talking about tariffs i know you are because but you're going to have to own this subject we're at economic war with china you've played that point several times no but but your paper doesn't say that your paper says there's some a liberal-like trade policy problem china has brought all forces of national power to be at economic war with the united states in much of the industrial democracies in the west that is what donald trump has said we are going to now combat we're now going to point very clearly um i want to move on to something else because what i really want our audience to understand is the full breadth of what your populist nationalism entails so can we since you've made trade such a paramount thing of of going forward your thing free tr free trades is going to make it a paradise you can't have free trade where you're up against mercantilist societies that are totalitarian we've we've heard your argument we've championed something different for 175 years and i like to think that history is on our side but let's leave it right there because you keep getting bailed out no you keep getting bailed out you keep getting bailed out by the deplorables in world war one and world war ii in the cold war and whatever else is in the future it is working men and women that have bailed you out and bailed your newspaper we have to move on from that and i want to go into something else which is the another era where you you accuse uh the the um capitalist elite i think as you sometimes call it party demos party of davos you say that state-controlled capitalism is basically taking away people's freedom the freedom of the ordinary worker yes now i look around at countries which have government's populist nationalist governments in power whether it is hungary whether it is poland or indeed whether it is this country and what i see is much more arbitrary use of power an undermining of the institutions which protect the individual whether it is the free press or whether it is the judiciary and i can't see that in practice your populist nationalism does anything other than make it easier to have corrupt abuse of power the um i think the one significant difference between the trump revolution here in this country and the populist nationalist movement in in europe is is around this point remember the three things i laid out in cpac that are the driving forces of the trump revolution of this populist national revolution here are economic nationalism to protect citizens and particularly workers uh america first foreign policy so we start together these foreign wars that is this kind of expeditionary humanitarianism of the party of davos could you answer the question i'm sorry we've got very little time left so why is do you agree no in the third and the third hang on the third is the deconstruction of the administrative state it's the reason gorsuch and kavanaugh are in the supreme court they're not social they're not about abortion or gay marriage these people are but the chevron exemption they're about deconstructing the administrative state what we're trying to do for the workers outside of some regulation is start to get into a more entrepreneurial society where workers can get a piece of the action in europe in europe because of the history of europe there is more uh people that want to get control of the state right and try to turn it around and i think one of the evolutions in the populist movement that i hope and i hope my involvement is is to help teach our colleagues in europe that the power comes from deconstructing the administrative state and letting the workers get a bigger piece of the action through better wages better jobs more high-valued jobs and more access to capital for entrepreneurship i would agree that in europe there is some arbitrary use come corruption of institutions and then this country i think it's more on the left i think it's more merkel and macron but by the way so as long as people want to get their hands on state power whether that is mccrone's party or miracles in this country if you look at the deregulation and lots of industries it's being written by lobbyists just i by the way i agree with the permanent political class runs washington dc i didn't say this is an easy fight remember i lose nine days out of ten okay it's just the reality the permanent political class in washington and they do write a lot of the regulations that's one of the things we're trying to stop and that's one of the reasons i'm a big supporter of the five stars it seems to be something that is one of the reasons no it's one of the reasons i was such a big supporter of the five star movement in italy because they're ahead and their economics is certainly not my type of economics they're kind of socialist but they believed in uh the stopping crony capitalism they believed in transparency they believe in all the stuff that peter schweitzer and i worked at throw the bums out that was their basic thing and i believe that too let's let's turn to another topic which is a topic um which is probably one of if not the most important challenge facing the world in the 21st century it's one that i can't see how it can be handled at a national level only and that is climate change you were instrumental in the u.s decision to pull out of the polaris climate agreement how does an economic nationalist cope with climate change or do you simply think it's not a problem no i think people have to think through and think of what the real math is in back of the problem then i think you have to have a coming together of individual nation states whether that's through the eu because i haven't said break up the eu all those parties we support in the movement want to have the eu as a collection of independent nations not like the united states of europe i think it has to come together but i don't know how you get into an agreement that essentially gives china a free ride to pollute and restricts the west the whole problem with the whole problem agreement did not give trade absolutely gave china a free ride you will always give in china a free ride china had absolute total free ride the paris accord is a debacle as far as the deal goes if you want to come back and if people want to and president trump is very open if there's a better deal that actually works he was very open to do that as as am i but i think you miss the threat is not climate change the threat besides the inexorable right the rise of a totalitarian mercantilist china which is the central geostrategic issue of our day with the west it is the convergence it and this is why i'm a populist i see the i see what globalism did to the workers okay particularly united states but this convergence of automation advanced chip design robotics and genetic engineering that will happen in the lifetime of three quarters of the audience here is going to be the greatest challenge we face in the 21st century and i think the greatest challenge in the history of mankind i won't be around and neither were you to face that but unless we take back from the scientific engineering managerial class in davos who read this newspaper and take it as gospel truth unless you take it back with that because you just told me earlier how much you enjoyed reading this news i love this newspaper i've read it every week since i was 12 and the financial times i don't agree with it but it's the best for as far as the facts go you just interpret the facts the wrong way but at least we use facts i think the difference is that we use facts mr banner to your own accord um no i did this convergence what people call the singularity ever will happen at 25 30 years or so is the single biggest threat in the 21st century unless workers start to take control of the political process in the united states and in europe it's going to be a total debacle because the same geniuses that got us in this spot today are going to be the same geniuses to make decisions on that people taking control of the political process is something that liberals have always been extremely keen on where you and i differ is in what is the best policies thereafter we have a very different world view on what is the right way to reach a more prosperous society but we have one minute 37 seconds left before we go into questions and i want to ask you uh uh one other question which is something close to my heart which is uh the time's up me too movement and you seem quite impressed by the power of the time's up movement but you also seem to be rather against its goals and i'm a little sort of i'm a bit confused by that because it seems to me that the time's up movement should be exactly the kind of thing that you are in favor of which is an anti-establishment movement growing up to change rules that are rigged against a particular group i think if you can way i look at if the populist nationalist movement's kind of like the american revolution it's about sovereignty and where decisions are made and who makes them i think the time's up in the in the me too as a subset of that the time's up movement which i think is enormously powerful is like the french revolution it wants to totally reorder society um and i think it's reordering not just against the judeo-christian west but hindu and islamic society that are all built on the patriarchy that's five thousand or ten thousand years of recorded history the time's up movement is the most powerful political movement in the world are you a guest i don't know i don't know what the matriarchy i don't know what the matriarchy would look like so right now i'm i'm i'm over whether you are a plain old chauvinist or whether you are actually i'm a former naval officer that served in the south china sea in the pacific my daughter is a graduate of the united states military academy at west point and served with the 101st airborne in iraq she's an army captain today after serving in eastern europe probably get deployed was going to get deployed back to afghanistan she's on the factory west point i know how to help raise an empowered woman okay so i fully understand what the objectives are and i agree with the objectives about empowering women i'm quite shocked that the metoo movement hasn't cut through corporate america with a bigger sith because i think there's a lot of potential there and i all i'm saying is that the time's up movement i believe is the single most powerful potential political movement in the world that seems an appropriate place to go to questions it's an area where we can probably agree i'm going to open questions here to lady here in the front row could you just wait for the microphone so that our colleagues in london can hear you i'm julissa arce i am a formerly undocumented immigrant also a very proud american citizen and i'm wondering whether you realize that you're lying to people or you or you do it on purpose in that you tell them that immigrants like me are taking their jobs and at the same time you are for tax cuts for the very wealthy and rich people and corporations where corporations are not for the worker but they're for the shareholder and what's really eradicating in the middle class is not people like me it's corporations corporately the one percent oh and also since you like reading so much i brought you a copy of my book so you can learn more about people like me thank you very much thank you i would love to have you sign this later if you could but but you did thank you all right and hang on hang on hang on hang on the um it's just a fact unlimited illegal immigration suppresses wages of hispanic i know that but it suppresses wages of hispanic and african-american citizens it's why the chamber of commerce wants us why the republican elite wants it it's just another form of unlimited labor pool right they don't mind unlimited competition among workers whether that's through illegal immigration or through trade deals or unlimited immigration that's just that's just a fact okay and by the way in the white house i'm the guy in the oval office that fought for 44 percent tax for people making over 5 million dollars i fought for that and i lost that fight to gary cohn and steve mnuchin who are progressive democrats so so so i fought for that in addition the thing i supported on the tax bill was the corporate taxes were to make us competitive with china and germany and to start to bring manufacturing jobs back here i'm not a massive fan of the tax plan and people understand and know my record and know the wall street journal financial times i fought every day for workers get a bigger piece of the tax cut what my my non-profit is doing right now we're running analysis on my concept of no tax on labor no tax on work up to a hundred thousand dollars you wouldn't have to pay taxes on your work that the capitalist and capital would have to pay more taxes and that's why why do you think the republican establishment the republican establishment hates me 10 times more than the progressive left there are many people many people okay five times wait no i would love to continue we are going to have to give our colleagues in london a chance they've been patiently listening uh daniel franklin let's turn over to you with a question from the london audience yes i see a uh plenty of hands going up here but i see a lady there uh if you could yeah keep your hand up keep your hand up no no you had your hand up there yes so um 35 percent of er mr bam 35 of 18 to 24 year olds um in the u.s election 2016 uh uh only 35 voted for um your candidate so um given that in 15 to 25 years time these will be the people who are making the laws how do you propose to change them to your ideologies i i think it's why i come to forums like this or why i try to speak everywhere and try to get out and it's by actions and facts right talk is cheap just look at the actions look at the actions of what we're trying to do in making this more of a workers-based economy what we're trying to do to save jobs what we're trying to do to bring high-value added manufacturing jobs back what we're trying to do to make sure that that illegal immigrants are not brought here it's kind of serfs i mean that's what that's what for millennials what you guys are today is serfs you're like 19th century russian serfs since the financial crash that started 10 years ago today in london with the bankruptcy of lehman what the elites did is they the balance sheet of the federal reserve went from 880 billion dollars to 4.5 trillion dollars they cut the spigots of liquidity on to save themselves so if you owned assets real estate stocks any kind of intellectual property you've had the greatest 10-year run in history why do you think this does not talk about income inequality because i have to ignore that no i have to inject because it's simply not true and we have i wrote a survey in 2012 on income inequality i'm just talking about the ten thousand seven hundred and thirty six word essay does not address that no here's my point is that the elites the party of davos took care of themselves and let the devil catch the hindmost that is the fuse that got lit 10 years ago today is what brought donald trump into your lives okay because he articulated as much as you hate him as much as you hate him and despise him and detest him look at what he's saying and connecting to workers okay it's the party a davos that created donald trump it's the party of davos that created him to laugh should we get another question because i think there are a lot of people who are anyway it comes to actions ma'am that's what's going to happen daniel let's get another question we have one more here in london yes yeah sure um so we had the ton of blair here earlier and he also spoke about the that china poses to europe and the western world and his argument was for a strong european union as a block taken strength from european people and my question is why don't you support this idea since every party support want to dismantle the european union and further decentralize europe and make a stand harder the european union why isn't that the answer to to china in your view because i think you first off have to have and i think that's why these parties that are rising that what they want is not a united states of europe where you have where you have italy's like north carolina to france's uh georgia what they want is independent 27 or 28 independent nation states with their own sovereignty where their citizens interests come first and that thing i think that the sense of treaty was failure i still think that that is the basic building block of where freedom is and i think that they these will these uh individual nations will unite like the judeo-christian west has always united at the end to to save this off and that's the great challenge of the 21st century along with automation and i think that when you see when when these countries and there's not one country now for the european elections of next year we're focused on i have not heard one of the leaders that i'm talking to all the time say they want to destroy the eu what they want to do is not do mccrone's vision macron's speech last year with further integration further economic integration for the political integration they want to stop that they don't want the united states of europe they want a collect they want a union a confederation of independent individual sovereign states one more question from london then we'll try and get one more here from new york um question here just near the front hi steve um i come from romania a country under which uh so former back in the soviet union times the workers had power over the political process uh to quote you from before can you give me one example in which a country uh has the power in the hands of the workers and was better off than any capitalist country in the same time period can you give one example yeah i think by the way i think in the under the american system of the united states in the 19th century where workers had a lot more power and you know a lot more freedom i think i think that that was a i think that was i think we might have to clarify that not all workers no but i think i think that i i have i have a tremendous respect for blue-collar people i have tremendous respect for workers i come from a blue collar family i think when decision making is pushed down to workers and i would argue the fact that romania or the soviet union were workers paradises they were basically dictatorships one more question here um yes gentlemen there third row this i'm afraid has to be the last question thank you for coming here today um my question is uh was and is donald trump truthfully your first choice for your movement was he simply a vehicle so in 2000 i did try to talk sarah palin at one time remember when i first looked at this is this a sexist audience or what where where where's time's up when you need it the key thing for us was originally to get the ideas out there that's why i talk to people like jeff sessions that's where i talk to people like lou dobbs i try to talk to people like sarah palin right no one ever took debate but the key was to get trade because trade is considered like medieval theology it's just assumed that free trade works and it's a radical radical radical idea it destroyed the workers in the united states and de-industrialized our country so so so so when trump but but when trump came along he articulated this perfectly and here's the thing he knows these issues if there's any one issue there's any one issue that he knows it's trade in china et cetera so he was he was to me the when he came along the perfect candidate we have i'm afraid run out of time we've ended on the subject where i think we are just going to have to agree that we have a very different worldview i like to in fact i'm quite sure that our world view is based on the facts which is that if you look back at the history of trade over the past 175 years the world has gained from an open trading system in the post-war period the world has gained from an open trading system i i'm very sure that a world view that is based on high barriers high protectionism we ran that movie in the 1930s and it was a disaster if you i want to thank the party of davos for attending um if you just watch what donald trump and japan korea the eu and mexico and canada are eventually going to do with reordering the global supply chain and bringing high-value ad jobs back to their countries you will see where this goes we will have you back in a few years to just we will see which of these world views proved to be uh the right one i am uh thank you however for joining us here for an interesting discussion thank you thank you very much honored you

Channel: The Economist

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Keywords: The Economist, Economist, Economist Films, Economist Videos, Politics, News, short-documentary, steve bannon, steve bannon interview, steve bannon latest interview, steve bannon trump, steve bannon speech, the economist, open future, #openfuture, zanny minton beddoes

Id: NAfm5L_DOLM

Length: 35min 7sec (2107 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 15 2018