Steve Bannon

You haven't given Trump credit.

And what do you think about the Gaza piece?

Literally five minutes, the first interview, five minutes, all about Israel.

This is just this obsession with it.

And

When I gave that keynote speech to kind of wrap up the National Conservatism Conference, which has kind of got a strong neocon take on it, I said, to quote T.E.

Lawrence from The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, what they told him at the time when he showed up at Cairo's military headquarters, they said, look,

The Middle East is a sideshow to the main event, the Western Front.

And the Arab revolt is a sideshow to a sideshow.

And I said the Middle East right now for us with everything geopolitically going on in the economic war, China, and our nation sliding toward a civil war around insurrection with a party like the Democrats have an escalatory ladder of violence.

The Middle East is a sideshow, and the Israel issue is a sideshow to a sideshow.

That's full stop.

And you can't let it be the central thing that you revolve around.

And I'm a supporter of Israel, and I'm a supporter of the Jewish people.

But the Israel First aspect of this has taken our eyes so far off the ball because they kept saying it's going to tear MAGA apart.

It's not going to tear MAGA apart because it's not a big enough fundamental issue to tear us apart.

And that's why we have to focus—

on the time that we have to really take down the central thing that President Trump will be known for.

One will be some of this peace on the Eurasian landmass, etc.

But the central thing, if he can accomplish it, and we must accomplish it on his tour of duty, is the deconstruction of the administrative state and the destruction of the deep state.