Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is ripping into former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), who is challenging Trump punching bag Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in the battleground state’s governor’s race next year. Bannon apparently thinks Perdue somehow doesn’t deserve the former president’s endorsement.
In an episode of his “War Room” podcast on Monday, Bannon blasted the Trump-endorsed Perdue as a “disaster” for not publicly voicing his support of Trump’s efforts to delegitimize democracy loud enough.
Bannon fumed that Perdue is “the last person in the world” who should challenge Kemp in Georgia’s GOP primary in the governor’s race. Bannon argued that Perdue was “dead silent” about Trump’s 2020 election loss and that the former GOP senator “did not support” Trump’s effort to challenge the election results.
“There’s no difference between Kemp and Perdue,” Bannon said. “This is the classic kind of country club, blue blazer, khaki pants and loafers that are part of the globalist movement that is the problem with the Republican Party.”
His complaints are, of course, not very valid. In his video announcing his candidacy, Perdue painted himself as a Trump loyalist, unlike Kemp who dared to buck Trump’s election fraud falsehoods. After saying that he is running for governor to ensure that Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams doesn’t win, Perdue then knocked Kemp, portraying the Georgia governor as someone who “caved” to Abrams by not going along with Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud.
Despite Bannon’s complaints, Perdue has bolstered Trump’s bogus claims in the past year. Prior to his loss to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in the January runoff, Perdue backed the unsuccessful Big Lie lawsuit waged by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton late last year, which aimed to challenge the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Additionally, Perdue also demanded the ouster of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, who defied Trump’s repeated demands that he “find” votes to help him win the battleground state.
But apparently that’s not quite enough fealty for Bannon, who reportedly helped Trump in his failed effort to overturn the election.
Bannon’s swipes at Perdue come just as the Justice Department accused the former Trump official of trying to whip up a media circus. The DOJ complaint is centered on Bannon’s request that the court lift the government’s protective order on the discovery material in his criminal contempt case and allow the documents to be made public.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with the House Jan. 6 select committee’s subpoena last month, citing “executive privilege” (despite the fact that he hadn’t worked at the White House for years before the Capitol insurrection).
