During her weekly press conference at Capitol Hill on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi said aloud what everyone’s been shouting from Twitter’s rooftop for ages: Stephen Bannon is a “white supremacist.” She said it twice.
Mic reports that Pelosi was referring to the presidential memorandum that invited Bannon to the National Security Council’s “Strategic Initiatives Group,” which additionally hobbled the joint power of the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, excluding them from meetings at the president’s discretion. This is an unprecedented act that would be extremely worrying even if Bannon weren’t who he is.
In her statement, Pelosi said, “What’s making America less safe is to have a white supremacist named to the National Security Council as a permanent member, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the director of national intelligence are told, ‘Don’t call us we’ll call you. You’re no longer permanent members, we’ll call you when we need—’ whatever judgement they make about when they want them to come back.”
In case that wasn’t clear enough, she added, “This is a stunning thing that a white supremacist, Bannon, would be a permanent member of the National Security Council.”
