Bannon predicts daily fights between Trump, mainstream media

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—President Donald Trump’s top White House advisers embraced his media feud Thursday, claiming the administration will never stop fighting with the press.

“If you think they are going to give you your nation back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken,” said Steve Bannon, the president’s chief strategist. “It’s going to get worse every day for the media.”

In a joint appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Bannon and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told a friendly crowd the Trump administration is fulfilling campaign promises—an agenda that will never be OK with the mainstream media.

Each year, CPAC brings together thousands in the shadow of the nation’s capital to discuss conservative principles, challenge liberal talking points, and network with like-minded people from across the country. Mainstream media coverage that favors Democrats has long provided fodder for speakers, but this year the criticism reached a new threshold. Trump, who will address CPAC on Friday, openly disdains traditional media outlets as “fake news,” and his top staffers brought that message to the conference on opening day.

“In regard to us two, I think the biggest misconception is everything you are reading,” Priebus said, as a packed auditorium erupted in laughter and applause.

Priebus and Bannon said despite all the bad press, everything within the Trump administration is going according to plan. And CPAC attendees believed them.

David Walls from Louisville, Ky., traveled east this week to visit friends from his 1974 West Point graduating class but couldn’t pass up the chance to attend CPAC wearing his black Trump cap. He told me he wouldn’t give the Trump administration an “A+” grade thus far, but thinks the president’s come close to top marks. Walls said Trump’s executive orders on travel and immigration are exactly what he campaigned on and agreed negative media coverage is the result of an anti-Trump agenda.

Nancy Channell and Sarah Chaulk campaigned for Trump in their home state of Ohio and came to CPAC to celebrate his victory.

“I think it has gone fabulously and despite all the pushback from the liberals in Congress and the liberal media,” Chaulk said of Trump’s first month in office.

Channell agreed it has been a success thus far and credited advisers like Bannon, who are helping Trump achieve his agenda.

“I listen to Breitbart every morning and when I heard Steve Bannon was joining Trump I jumped out of bed and screamed ‘thank you, Lord,’” Channell said. “[Trump] has a great administration surrounding him and advising him.”

Not everyone came to CPAC to celebrate Trump. Some came to advocate for causes important to them.

Joe Guzzardi traveled from Los Angeles representing Californians for Population Stabilization. He came to CPAC for the first time this year to advocate for slowing population growth in his state by reducing immigration. Guzzardi told me he’s pleased with the Trump administration so far but would like to see the president end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which indefinitely suspends deportation for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children.

Craig DeRoche, senior vice president for advocacy and public policy at Prison Fellowship, came to CPAC to talk about reforming America’s criminal justice system.

“We’re hopeful that the president and his team will take on some of the areas of the justice system that are broken today,” DeRoche said.

More faith-based groups should have access to the prison system, he said, and the government needs to help paroled inmates successfully assimilate back into society: “As Christians, we know Christ died on the cross and redemption is at the core of that. We want that to be part of our culture: You pay back your debt, you should be back in a citizenship role and participating in your family and working toward self-sufficiency.”

Priebus and Bannon touched on few policy specifics during their talk but insisted Trump will fulfill the promises he outlined on the campaign trail.

Bannon characterized the media as the “opposition party” to the Trump agenda, which he described as “economic nationalism.”

“If you look at the opposition party and how they portrayed the campaign, how they portrayed the transition, and how they are portraying the administration, they are always wrong,” Bannon said. “Every day it’s going to be a fight.”