07/26/17 07/26/17 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! [chanting] arms will restore the e sergeant of arms will restore order in the chamber. "kills protesters shouted the bill" said republicans voted tuesday to open debate on the

killing obamacare. the health care of f children'sf millioions of people is at stak. it comes as president trump intensifies his attacks on his attorney general jeff sessions. preses. trump:p: i am didisappod in the attorney generalal. he should not have recused hihimself. amamy: we will speak with jososa green about the latest news, plus his new book "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." >> the book gives an insight into steve bannon and donald trump, who they can together to do, and really explains why things have gone off the rails in early months of the trump administration. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to d democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. senate republicans n narrowly pushed through a procedural vote

to open debate on plans to repeal and maybe replace the affordable care act tuesday, but then suffered a defeat only hours later when republicans failed to muster enough votes to pass their replacement bill. first on tuesday, the senate voted 50 to 50 to open the debate, with vice president mike pence breaking the tie. two republican senators, susan collins of maine and lisa murkowski of alaska, joined democrats in voting against the motion to proceed. arizona senator john mccain dramatically returned to capitol hill to cast a decisive vote to open debate, only a week after being diagnosed with brain cancer. but once the debate began, divisions within the republican party over a replacement bill doomed their efforts to push through any legislation. nine republicans joined democrats in rejecting the first healthcare proposal, which would cause more than 20 million people to lose their health

insurance in the next 10 years. the republicans needed 60 votes to pass the bill, but ultimately received only 43. throughout the day, republican lawmakers faced massive protests in the senate chamber, at offices across capitol hill, and even on the doorsteps of their own homes. nearly 100 people were arrested throughout the day. this is one activist speaking during an early morning protest outside ohio senator rob portman's home. >> her name is charley. she was born at 26 weeks. weighed one pound, 12 ounces. the aca gave her a chance. medicaid made this possible. a yes vote will steal her

future. she is my daughter. i will fight until we win. amy: she's speaking as her daughter, charley, sits on her shoulders. she's holding a sign reading "her birth is a pre-existing condition." hours later, hundreds of actitivists with the disability rights group adapt occupied the hart senate building, chanting, "i'd rather go to jail than die without medicaid!" >> i'd rather go to jail than die without medicaid! amy: at least 64 activists wiwih adapt were arrested, many of them in wheelchairs. faith leaders also held rally and mock funeral march for the thousands who could die without insurance if republicans repeal the affordable care act. this is traci blackmon, executive minister of justice and witness ministries for the united church of christ. fromam coming here today

the bedside of a dear friend's sick daughter who would not likely still be among's if it were not for the affordable care act. i am black and she is white, but that does not matter because the need for health care transcends skin tone. she is jewish and i am christian, but that doesn't matter because the need for health care transcendshe just believe. i was able to be at her bedside because the aca guaranteed that needing a a heart transplantedet maintainin her from gettiting coverage because of lifetime limits. amy: then around 2:30 p.m. as senate majority leader mitch mcconnell asked for a vote to proceed to a debate on the health care bill on tuesday, 19 activists were a arrested in the sesenate chahamber, as they shod "kill the billll! kikill thehe bill!" " >> kill these bill! kill this bill!

restoreant of arms will order in the chamber. >> shame! shame! amy: reporters say they were ordered by capitol police to delete photos and videos of the arrests of the activists from their phones. senate lawmakers will resume debate today. president trump is continuing go publiclyly humiliate his own attorney geneneral jeff sessssi, telling reporters tuesdaday he thininks it's unfair sessionons recusesed himself from the investigation into alleged russian meddling in the 2016 election. pres. trump: i am disappointeted in t the attorney general. he should not have recused afterf almost immediately he took ofoffice. and if he wawas going to recusee hihimself, he should have to mee prioto takining office and i would have, q quite simply, picd somebody else. so i think that isis a bad thin,

not for the presidentnt, but for the presidency. i think it is unfair to the presididency. that is the way i feel. amy: trump's comments tuesday are the latest in a string of intensifying attacks against sessions. "the washington post" has reported trump and his advisers are considering replacing sessions and that texas senator ted cruz and former new york mayor rudolph giuliani are among the candidates being considered as sessions' replacement. meanwhile, attorney general sessions has intensified his attack against sanctuary cities, saying tuesday the justice department will refuse to give cities hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants unless they agree to cooperate with the federal government's crackdown against undocumented immigrants, saying states must allow federal immigration authorities to operate inside state jails and alert ice agents when someone who is undocumented is set to be released cities want to receive

the federal grants. in more news from capitol hill, president trump's former campaign manager paul manafort will not testify today before the senate judiciary committee after the panel dropped the subpoena. this comes after manafort and -- met with senate investigators tuesday to answer questions about their meeting last summer, along with donald trump son donald trump, jr.. kushner also testified during a closed-door session with the house intelligence committee for about three hours on tuesday. meanwhile in a direct challenge to president trump, the house of representatives voted 419-3 tuesday to give progress the power to block any effort by the white house to w weaken u.s. actions against russia. this is congressman david sizzling. cannot allowply any foreign power to interfere in our electoral process given

our residents complete unwillingness to hold russia, but for their attack, let's not mistake it for anything else, it has become necessary for commerce to assert itself in this area and ensure russia will be held accountable. amy: president trump intense but his threats during a rendering a speech in youngstown, ohio, on tuesday. pres. trump: the aranda, which may be the single worst deal i have ever seen drawn by any body conformat deal does not to what it is supposed to conform to, there is going to be big, big problems for them. that i can tell you. amy: these threats come despite the fact that the trump administration begrudgingly certified that iran has complied with its obligations under the obama-brokered n nuclear agrmemt last week. the state department has also

announced new sanctions against iran over alleged support for terrorism and iran's ballistic missile program. during trump's same speech tuesday in youngstown, ohio, he also repeated his frequent attacks on the news media and claimed he can be more presidential than any other u.s. president and history, except abraham lincoln. pres. trump: and i said, with the exception of the late, great, abraham lincoln, i can be more presidential than any president that has ever held this office. amy: r republican sesenator susn collins of maine and democratic senator jack reed of rhode island were caught on a hot mic expressing concern that president trump is "crazy" at the end of a senate subcommittee hearing on tuesday. this is senator reed. .> i don't say that lightly

amy: andnd that wawas natotor collins sayiying she's worried. eaearlier this month, more than0 democratic lawmakers expressed support for a bill introduced by maryland congress member jamie raskin that would create a commission to determine if the president is mentally or physicalally unfit for office. palestinians have vowed to continue protesting the new israeli security measures being imposed at the holy al-aqsa mosque in jerusalem, saying the new proposal to install surveillance cameras is just as bad as the metal detectors israel installed earlier this month, sparking massive protests. palestinian activist mohammad abu al-hommos said -- "above all else, this is an issue of control and power. i want to go in and out of al-aqsa as i please -- who are they to surveil me?" israelel was forced to remove te metal detectctors after widesprd protests and violence, which killed seven people -- four palestinians and three israelis. israeli troops have also injured

more than 1000 palestinians protesters by shooting them with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades. amnesty international says heavily armed israeli troops also raided a palestinian hospital twice during the protests on july 17 and july 21, harassing the staff and chasing wounded protesters w who were trying to receive treatment after being attacked by the soldiers. the hospital's head of reception, talal al-sayed, said -- "they invaded the entire hospital. they even entered the neonatal unit. what do they want in there? it was pure terrorization of the patientsts." in afghanistan, at least 26 afghan soldiers have been killed in a taliban attack on a military base in kandahar province tuesday. the defense ministry says 13 more soldiers were wounded and at least people were kidnapped seven in the attack. meanwhile, the afghan journalists' safety committetee says at least 10 journalists have been killed in afghanistan so far this yeyear. the group says the taliban and

isis militants are responsible for the majority of the attacks against media workers in afghanistan. in syria, u.s.-led coalition airstrikes and shelling by u.s.-backed troops reportedly killed at least 18 civilians in the city of raqqa on tuesday. that's according to the local journalistic group raqqa is being slaughtered silently, which says the u.s.-led coalition launched more than 40 airstrikes over the last two days as part of the ongoing campaign to seize control of the raqqa from isis. the e philippine president has sparked alarm among human rights groups after he threatened to bomb tribal schools, accusing them of teaching students to become communist rebels. in a speech on monday, duterte said "i will use the armed forces. i will have those bombed because your operatingng illegally teteaching the children to rebel against government." and in chile, hundreds of people

took to the streets tuesday to demand abortion be legalized, only days a bill to increase abortion access failed to pass by only one vote. the bill would have allowed abortion in the case of rape, if the mother's life is at risk, or if the fetus has a deadly birth defect. more than 70% of chileans supported the legislation and some support legalizing abortion in all cases. this is one of the protesters tuesday. >> and abortion were everybody has the right to an abortion and not obligatory brotherhood. we want an infant number of this infinite number. . and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. tuesday was another dramatic day in washington. on capitol hill, senate republicans voted by the narrowest ofof margins to open debate on repealing obamacare. vice president mike pence broke a 50-50 tie in the senate. two repupublican senators, susan

collins of maine and lisa murkowski of alaska, joined democratats in voting against te motion to proceed. republican senator john mccain cast a decisive vote to open debate after flying in from arizona where he is being treated for brain cancer. but hours later, the effort to repeal or replace obamacare faced another setback when nine republicans joined democrats in rejecting the first healthcare proposal. meanwhile,e, presidentnt trump continue to o publiclyly humilie his own attorney g general jeff sessions, who wasas the first setotor to endororse trump durig the 202016 race. on twitter, , trump hahas descrd sessions a as "beleaguered" and "very weak." then in a news conference in the rose garden, trump told reporters sessions should not have rececused himself from the probe into alleged russian meddling in the 2016 election. pres. trump: i am disappointed in the attorneyy genenal.

he should not have recuseded himself almost immediately after he tooook office. and i if he wasas going to recue himself, he ouould have to mee prior to taking office and i picked have, quite simply, somebody elslse. so i i think that is a a d thin, not for the president, but for the presidency. i ththink it is unfair to the presidency. that is the way i feel. thank you. amy: to talk about these latest developments, we are joined by joshua green, senior national correspondent for bloomberg businessweek. he is author of the new book , which we're going to spend the hour talking about today, "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." welcomome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. a lot happened yesterday on a number of fronts. yes, president trump continue to his attack on his attorney general jeffff sessions and in e narrowest of votes, the senate voted to move ahead in repealing

and, i don't know, possibly replacing obamacare. 50-50, two senators, both women, joining republican senators, joining the democrats voting , butst opening debatate ultimately, vice president pence broke the tie and they are moving forward today. the significance of all of this? > it is significant they movd forward -- and commerce, and is called a motion to proceed. this is just to begin the debate. there was real fear in the white house and among republicans they would not get that far. this is the states that health care might die on. came saw, john mccain provided the 50th vote. vice president pence was the tie-breaking vote. then they couldn't afford. i think the real signal yesterday about how things are going came when they voted on this deeply unpopular republican senate bill and had nine defections. that is a very bad sign for republicans who support repeal

and sometimes replacement. it does that get any easier going forward. there is going to be debate, what is called a vote-a-rama were different things are voted on. the last gasp hope for republicans is they might be able to pass a scaled-back version of repeal known as a skinny bill, that only takes away some of these benefits, but less than what they would like to take away. amy: many commenting on social media. here was john mccain coming back, very moving as he hugged democrat and republican colleagues. but then ultimately, voting to open the debate -- not that he necessarily said he was going to support what would be presented next, but coming back from his own surgery, what most people in america could not have afforded if they did not have health care. >> there's something striking about this. i was in washington supporting -- writing during obamacare fight when taken in the, who at the same brain cancer that john

mccain has now, flew back in, cast theweekend, to deciding vote to give people health care. and here is john mccain who gives this dramatic speech about how republicans need to return to regular order, which they have ignored throughout this process, and cast the deciding vote to go ahead and take health care away from people. it was a dramatic bookend. i think it just shows how extreme even republicans like john mccain, who has always been considered kind of a popular maverick, so into florida with becoming a democrat -- some who flirted with becoming a democrat. amy: and how interesting it is when people ask what difference it would make if the women had parity in the e senate. senators, two women republican, who joined with the democrats. >> there are all sorts of things

in the bill -- i know susan collins of maine, one of the women senators, , had said she objects to the fact the bill would defund planned parenthood, and that was it deal killer for her. there are not any men among the republican senate caucus that feel the same way. so it is so important individual politics of the senators, but you can see the m wharton's of individual -- the imporortance f individuals. how the democrats one in individuals the last year, this motion to proceed on health care would not have happened. it gives you -- it is reminder of how vital every election is when it comes to these big landmark bills. amy: speaking of planned parenthood, the senate parliamentarian ruling planned parenthood could not be defunded for a year with just a majority vote will stop and in the senate majority leader saying that he might overrule what she said. what's this is another steamrolling of congressional in custody still norms.

lot over thethis a last six months. it tends to be a attributed mainly to president trump because he is so o offensive and transgressive and kind of crashes through these norms. but the real story seems to me, mainstream republicans i ike mih mcconnell, are doing the same thing and going even further, having no open hearings on this landmark hill. not following the normal rules of procedure, and now when you have a senate parliamentarian saying, "no, it is against the rules" they say we're going to do it anyway. there's something dangerous about that. amy: at the same time, you have donald trump attempting, clearly, to push out -- a little nervous about, probably, firing the attorney general given all of the controversies of the past, but trying to p put enough pressure on him, calling him

weaken beleaguered, to get him out as attorney general. >> i don't think he is actually trying to get him out. i think you try to humiliate him publicly and a great link's. at the beginning of the process when trump for started criticizing him publicly, sessions went and offered his resignation. if trump wanted him out -- amy: at the time. we're talking four and to go. >> true, b but he still has a resisignation letterer. if trump wanted him out, he woululd be out. i have talked to people in the white house around trump who are very concerned about this. they say sessions s does not wat to leave and t trump is not inclined to fire e him. so the lesson he learned in donald trumps white house in steve annan has h had to endure this, is you're going to be humiliated. your integrity is going to be question. but if you're wililling to just sisit there and end your it, you

can probably survive. amy: and his point, what is trump trying to do in humiliating him? >> i think a certain dominant and just express anger. one white house advisor -- i said, what is the endgame? he said, trump is just blowing off's theme. -- off steam. he is angry by the russian investigation. yesterday he was his son-in-law testify before the senate intelligence committee. he gets angry and h he remembers that if jeff sessions had not recuse himself -- or so trump thinks, none of this would be happening. humiliates them. amy: you don't buy the idea he wants about, we will appoint a recess appointment to the attorney general who could then fire the special counsel mueller? >> you never want to make predictions about mueller. trump. no, you just passing, for whatever reason, to try and force sessions all the way out.

amy: meanwhile, sessions is clearly forging forward. in ourur headlines today, intensifying his attack on sanctuary cities, pushing through this rule that cities around the country would not be able to get something like $250 million in aid if they don't cooperate with ice and allow them to go into the jails, tell them when an undocumented immigrant has been held. >> exactly. one o of the twisted ironieses f this all situation and the reason you see the white -- right-wing base a guest over this -- and coulter was in the white house a few days ago, breitbart news and tucker carlton and fox news of a critical o of trump on this because jeff sessions is the one person in trump's cabinet who is actually managing to carry out some o of his agenda. his s legislative agenda, for te most part, is pancake -- not can do a lot of things in terms

of criminal justice and especially terms of immigration crackdown without having to go to congress. are you see is not only arrests of undococumented imimmigrants way up under trump, you have the threatening sure cities.sing jeff sessions is also the guy who is running the administration administrative judges to the u.s.-mexico border so they can process deportation even faster. he is doing what trump says he wants done and rails about in a speech and youngstown last night and yet the one guy who is carrying out trumps agenda is also being humiliated during the process. amy: josh, you mentioned right part news. we are going to go deeply into the man who used to be the head of breitbart news, steve bannon. breitbart news leading the charge right now to try to protect the attorney general. with steve bannon inside the white house doing that?

>> i don't think he needs to. breitbart news has been aligned with jeff sessions and his former senior staffer now, with stephen miller, since 2013, 2014, back then jeff sessions s the mostst anti-immigrant hardliner in congress, so much so during the 2013 debate over bipartisan immigration reform, there were amendments offer that were so extreme that jeff sessions was the lone vote in the senate to vote for them. too extreme even for hardliners like ted cruz. so there is a real agreement between breitbart and bannon and jeff sessions and his s staff about how to approach issues like immigration, criminal justice reform. is beingthat sessions punished in the way that he is

is deeply upsetting to the whole right-wing populist base because sessions is the avatar in the implementer of everything that they really believe in. so it is almost like seeing two of your parents fighting. donald trump and jeff sessions that theseiticians people admire, and now one of them is hitting the other and threatening to fire him from the most powerful law enforcement position in the land. amy: steve bannon and steve miller, as you said, steve miller who was jeff sessions' staffer before he joined donald trump on the campaign trail, warming up speeches before trump with fiercely anti-immigrant speeches, now inside the white house with steve bannon. >> at the speech last night and youngstown, which was bizarre, where trump is t talking about young teenagee girls being slashed with knives by marauding illegal immigrants -- it is like a scene out of a for a movie.

that is all stephen miller. ininterviewed him an february and i asked why his speeches are so dark and disturbing. he said you in the mainstream media refuse to report on the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants because you sececrety support them, therefore, we need to heighten the contradictions and make even more vivid. nowhere is this more vividid thn and speeches like the one that trump gave last night. amy: then you have breitbart news headline yesterday across the homepage "trump versus trump: put us in danger's immigration agenda [captioning made possible by democracy now!] >> jeff sessions is though one who believeses -- is the one t t believes what breitbart editorial staff on to be done about immigration. beinge is, not just humiliated, but threatened with firing. if sessions were to leave, it is impossible for me to imagine a

replacement who could be as hawkish and as severe on immigration as jeff sessions is. i definition if you were to leave, whoever his replacement wound up being, some fox news tv judge or lord knows who trump would appoint, that person would be weaker on immigration then jeff sessions is from the standpoint of a breitbart reader. amy: we are talking to josh green. we will spend the rest of the hour talking about his book "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." is democracy now! we will be back in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amamy: "excucuse me" peter gabrl will stop this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we turn now to look at them and many credit with helping d donad trump become president, steve,

ththe former head of breitbart news. during the early days of the trump presidency, many suggested bannon was pulling many of the strings in the oval office as the "time" put him on the cover with thehe headline "the greaeat manipulator." outlined month, bannon his plans for the trump administration. >> i think if you look at the in threei break it verticals or buckets. the first is national security and sovereignty, your intelligence, thehe defense departmentnt, homeland security. the e second line is economic nationonalism. the third, broadly line of work, thewhat i is deconstruction of administrative state. if you look at these cabinet appointees, there were selected for reason and that is the deconstruction -- the way the progressssive left ruruns is thy can't get it passed, they will put it into some sort of regulation in an agency. that will deconstruction. i think that is s what is revelatory thing is so important. amy: that was stephen bannon

speaking at the conservative political action conference. a new book by our guest joshua green chronicles how bannon took his polititics from the fringegf the republican party all the way to the white house. green has been closely following bannon's career f for years. inin october 2015, before bannon joined comes camampaign, green dubbed him the most dangerous political operative in america. at the time, bannon was head of breitbart news and overseeing a multifaceted campaign to take down hillary clinton as well as more moderate republican candidates. joshua green's new book is titled, "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." josh, talk about the rise of donald trump and why you think steve bannon was so key, perhaps if there had not been a steve bannon, there would not be a president donald trump. >> that is my contention in the book. i think the best way to understand this election, understand what happened and how it got -- a guy like trump wound

up in the white house, really to understand the forces that are roiling our politics and producing such extreme and unusual things -- we see literally every day in the trump administration. to understand that, yet understand steve bannon. to me, he is the narrative thread that runs not just through the rise of trump, but the rise of this whole right-wing populist nationalist politics that he has been espousing ever since i first met him in 202011. the story until in the book, basically, the intertwined stoty of the rise of the bannon and donald trump. but i met bannon in 2011 when he was working on a documentary film about sarah palin who he hoped would run for president in 2012. he was trying to fill her head with the same ideas in the same policies that you heard from donald trump. it took him a wild to find his candidate.

he was brought into trump's orbit in 2010. he began advising him, tutoring him on politics in formally at a time when everybody else, certainly i did not take him seriously as a politician. was able to take his nationalist politics, in particular, the idea there is political power, taking a hard line on immigration, on demonizing immigrants as marauders and killers that trump seemed to have intuitively sensed would resonate among republican grassroots voters. the combination of birtherism and this anti-immigrant sentiment kind of mixed together to produce the candidate who upset the entire republican field. amy: talk about howow bannon cae into trump's orbit not originally, but in the summer of 2016, how he came to take over. this is also the story of the mercers. >> bannon had beeeen this mininr

figure in n trump's life since 2010 when an activist brought them along to trump tower to tutor trump about politics. but he did not enter most people's political awareness until he took over the campaign .ramatically in mid-august 2016 at a time when trump looked like he was floundering analyst certainly headed toward a blowout loss. i have a scene in the book that begins with the daughter of a right-wing -- very secretive right-wing billionaire named robert mercer, the co-ceo of renaissance tecechnology, said loosely successful hedge fund -- said loosely successful hedge fund. mercer and his daughter -- i call them in the book the alt koch brothers. the koch brothers to be more mainstream. the mercers have unusual and different beliefs and they essentially or have been steve bannon's benefactors over the

last couple of years, pouring money into breitbart news. also into a movie production company, data science from that trump relied on. and most importantly, a nonprofit research entity in tallahassee, florida, which produced the clinton cashbook they came out on the eve of the election and sort of tarnished clerk clinton's image i documenting her ties to some of the shady foreign donors. the mercers were big backers of trump. originally behind ted cruz. but they got behind trump, giving him money, setting up a super pac. rebecca mercer, the daughter, who is very aggressive in getting involved -- i've a scene where she flies out to a trump fundraiser in long island, demand a meeting with trump. you can do that if you have given him millions and millions of d dollars.

and says, look, you're losing. you're going to lose this election unless you make a change. you are losing and the only way you're going to win is if you have a radical change. i have a team of people i think ought to take over your campaign. steve, kellyanne conway, and later david boss. all of them veteran clinton activists. trump, who is frustrated with his current campaign manager paul manafort, agrees and says, ok, let's put them in charge. we need some who can hit harder. bannon is this famously aggressive breitbart news publisher who would not be held back, has the same instincts as trump. people did know it at the time, fortrump had known bannon long time. lo and behold, we wake up i think it was a wednesday morning to this anannouncementnt that se babannon, despised by just about everyone in washington, is now in charge of the campaign. amy: and manafort is out.

>> paul manafort was not out originally. aump hired bannon i think on sunday night without telling paul manafort or anybody else. there is a scene in the book where, it is on a sunday, and trump tells bannon, ok, you're in, drive out to my country club in new jersey tomorrow and we will have a senior staff meeting . kushner was not there because he in croatia.ting he was not present for that meeting. but at the meeting, manafort, who still thinks he is i in chae of the campaign, walks into a room and sees steve bannon. steve bannon says, hey, i'm joining the campaign. very bad mood because "the new york times" has just run this and nursing story saying trump's own advisers feel like they can't talk to him. they have to go on cable news in order to send a message to trump and trump, who is been made to

look like a fool, explodes. paulys "it might a baby, ?" and curses and in linkage we probably cannot use on air here. a couple of days later decides manafort has to go. but trump does not like to fire people, despite the public image. he deputized as his son-in-law at afrom his yachting trip breakfast to get rid of manafort, who resists -- amy: he says, you're going to make look like i'm guilty on the russia -- >> exactly. he resists and kushner says, basically, "you are going. we have a press release coming out saying you have resigned." that was the end of paul manafort in the beginning of the successful steve bannon-era of the campaign. amy: let's talk about steve

bannon, where he comes from. for people to understand the different forces at play. >> so the newspaper bio synopsis of steve bannon is that he comes from a blue-collar irish democratic-catholic navy family in richmond, virginia. his dad is a telephone linesman. tech.o virginia gogot into harvard business school. was in the navy, later goldman sachs. asl done in hollywood first -- wound up in hollywood first in filmvestment banker financier. once you make some money, he moved over to the creative side and began making conservative documentaries -- amy: made some money, we're talking "seinfeld." >> yes. the weird detail in bannon's life is while he was investment baker, he brokered a deal pictures,stle rock which owned "seinfeld," which was in its infancy at the time,

and ted turner, who wanted to buy the shows. as bannon tells in the book, when they sat down at the table, turner was short of cash and so rather than let the deal fall apart, bannon took in lieu of its ordinary advisory fee, he took a basket of residuals from five television shows, including "seinfeld." as we all know, "seinfeld" when on to become i think the most popular sitcom in television off an awfulhrow lot of money. bannon and his partner, a very small part of that, but enough they make millions and millions of dollars from it. once bannon got to that point, he decided he wanted to give a kind of a full airiri to hisng conservative politics, which i think he kept hidden as you travel through the worlds of harvard and goma sex -- amy: goldman sachs' hero, michael milligan. >> in the mid-1980's at the

height of the leveraged takeover -- if you have ever read "the gate, you know there were these outsiders who were kind of storming the fortress and taking sort of fat and corporations that were vulnerable. he recognized in michael milligan, a guy who was his spirit animal. here was an outsider storming the fortress is and he is winning. i think thahat lodged in his mid and b bannon later on whenen het her breitbart news, portrays himself in a political sense for a much like michael milken did in a financial sense. amy: --

>> he was busted for insider trading and went to jail for a number of years. dark,k bannon liked the outsider narrative that milken told. he sort of cultivated his own image before you went to jail as this guy who storming the fortresses and taking on the satins, lazy, corrupt establishment, thereby, was doing something good. bannon to the same thing a breitbart news. he was say, we're taking on the establishments of both parties of crony capitalists. and so we're going to go to break and come back to this story, joshua green writes about in his book, which is titled, "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trurump, and the storming of the presidency." we will be back in a moment. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. to joshua green.

his new book, "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." i want to turn to a speech that steve bannon delivered via skype to a conference held inside the vatican in 2014. is in aieveve the world crisis. itit is really be ororganizizing principle of how we built breitbart news to r really be aa platformrm to bring news and information to people throughout the world, principally in the west, but expanding internationally, to let peoplee understand the depths of this crisisis. itit is a crisis bothth o capitalism them a butut really f the underpinnings of the judeo-christian wesest and our beliefs.s. we are in an oututright war islam,st jihadists, isislamic fascisism. thisis war i t think iss metaststasizing on is far quickr

than governments can handle it. amy: that is steve bannon delivering a skype address to a vatican conference in 2014. joshua green thomas talk about the religion that informed steve bannon politics. >> we talked about the newspaper bio of steve bannon' is blue-collar background. the interesting part of this research, bannon's religious intellectual biography. this is a story that has not been told that i go into some detail in in the book. in the course of my reporting, i asked steve bannon, when you are at the vatican conference -- this was a group of far, far right conservative traditionalist catholics --bannon name checked a man named julius evola who was an mussolini's fascist ideologist at the beginning of

world war ii. i said, steve, if you're not an anti-semi to and a nazi and what's premises -- white supremacist, why is it that you are familiar with people like evola? he said when i developed my ideas, i went back and was looking for intellectual edifice to kind of informed these ideas. nationalist thinkers, you really have to go back to the 1930's and the 1940's when those ideas were ascendant. but the real gotot hit influencd me, bannon told me, was an man renee here is a fascinating biography. he was born in france in the late 19th century to roman catholic family, practiced cultism, freemasonry, later converted to islam and observe the sharia, which is a very unusual guru for a guy like

steve bannon who is so islamaphobic. renee was the founder of . religious philosophy is commonhat there spiritual truths unifying spiritual truths at the heart of ancient religions like the hindu bernanke, sufism, medieval catholicism come even paganism. and these are o original spiritl truths that will were revealed to mankind in the earliest ages of the world, but had been lost in the west by the rise of secular modernrnity. so bannon, who was raised in a very traditional catholic family, who went to a right-wing catholic military high school, has been steeped in this right-wing western sieve

curriculum, believes, as renee does, that we are entering a dark age. that the rise of t the enlightenment in the 1500's has led us apocalypse. and that if he can't prop up traditional values and do what renee at up to do, which was "restore to the west of traditional civilization," been mankind is going to be destroyed all stuff that is his animating believe. amy: i want to turn to julius evola in his own words, who struck an alliance with benito mussolini. his ideas became the basis of fascist racial theory. this is in speaking with a french filmmaker in 1971 about what he considered the positive aspects of fascism in a particular nationalal socialism, not the is him. --naziism.

positive invaluauable aspects. those which i could value are the reconstructition of the authority of t the state and the idea of overcoming class conflict toward a hierarchical formation. to s some extentt the military discipline style within the nation, in a addition to some ef me, allti-proposals, to of that is posositive. amy: that is julius evola, one of the people steve bannon n -- >> i've never seen that clip. the unifying thread here is evola also looked to renee for inspiration. renee was the godfather of this capital t traditional movement. he believed the way to transcscendence of spirituality was to basically indoctrinate small groups of important people all over the world.

what we today would call influencers. he believed if you could push change, other change would follow. he was the black sheep of the family. he said, no, we can't sit back and try to change people's spirituality. we need to try to change society. evola struck an alliance with whistling the to try to insert power with the italian government, which he had. he was the chief racial theorist for miscellany. they had a falling out and evloa moved on to hitler and nazi germany. the believe in the hindu concept of cyclical time, the idea that the world passes through set stages. evola believed, as bannon and renee does, we are in the 6000

ages in which man's connection to god and the transcendent is wholly forgotten. evola brought these ideas to interwar europe to italy and tried to change society that way to fight back against it. bannon has come to this through a a kind of populist, hard right politics where through breitbart and some of these affiliated organizations, he has tried to not only take over american politics, but look at what he is doing in places like the european union. he is trying to destroy what he would call these globalist edifices, which he believes is a manifestation of the rise of modernity and something that needs to be destroyed to pull us back to a pre-enlightenment era. amy: we're talking to joshua green. his new book is "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." you also talked about how breitbart news went after fox

news to make it more extreme. and the gaming background of steve bannon, recognizing that fox news was for old folks. there was this huge young conservative set he could bring in. got ask, thing i hav who are these people with thealt-right? bannon, a lien of them is a critical figure in the rise of the alt-right. many of the members who read and admire julius evola and his thinking. but back in 2007 after bannon had done hollywood and for making, for about a year and have come he wanted was the ceo of a videogame company in hong kong, which did not actually make video games that you play but pray near something called gold farming, which i'd never heard of. that is the process of going into these massive multiplayer

games like world of warcraft, prizes and armoror and gold, which allow you to advance in the game, but then turning around bannon and selling them to people in the real world. bannon's company would hire in 24to play these games hour rotating cycles, when all this stuff, then sell it to wealthier gamers offline, which was considered a serious enough business goldman sachs actually invested money in the company. what happened was, they gamers -- most of the people who played it considered is cheating i got angry. kids would spend hours and weeks and months absorbed in these games and did not like the fact there was a shortcut. so the gamers themselves organized on message boards. there are special message boards devoted to these multiplayer games. they organize themselves and said, hey, we're going to put pressurere on these videogames d make them shut down the practice of gold farming.

and they did. it destroyed and encrypted bannon's business. the less i need to go away from this, there are millions and millions of young, white meant mostly white men who spend their entire lives in the online alternate reality -- amy: fortune. it's exactly. if their motive to do so, they can be a very powerful political force. they bankrupted my company. i want to see if i can channel them into politics. when bennett got to breitbart news, he hired a notorious internet troll to be breitbart's tech editor. and to essentially entice these legions of angry online gamers into the world of populist right-wing politics and eventually bannon was able to turn them onto trucks. amy: so you now have bannon and the white house. his main issues, as he talked about atcpac, is dismantling the administrative state.

how powerful is he right now? is the succeeding? >> he is to an extent. signal operating on two levels. if you are traditional movement republican, you don't like gogovernment, you want governmet to shrink, you hear what bannon says as "we're going to shrink government," but on another level, and this gets back to the traditionalists, rain and is using coded. wasof renee's believes their work two little moments in world history that brought us away from god and the transcendent. one was the destruction of the order of knights templar and 1312, which cut off western connection does it took knowledge. the other was a piece of does it give rise to the modern nationstate. tot is what bannon once

destroy. amy: he talks about fake news, "the new york times" as fake news but used "the new york times" to advance his goals. that goes to the issue of clinton cash. >> bannon, he is a very savvy guy who understands how to manipulate the mainstream media. one of the things i thought he did so brilliantly is find a way to get his stories into "the new york times." he funded two years worth of research, produced bill clinton cash which documented all of the stuff. then brought the book to reporters in the mainstream outlets like "the times" and "the post" who took the stories, published them in their papers,, and spread his anti-clinton message in the mainstream media, discouraging a lot of clinton's voters. in the end, that proved to be a very effective tactic. amy: and you would after fox news. >> h he did because bannonon believes there was a split between populist republicans and what he would call fox news

establishment republicans. there is a scene in the book of bannon screaming at roger ailes, and eventually bannon broke the back of fox news now they've become the most pro-trump station you can find anywhere on cable. amy: u.n. to college with sean spicer. >> i did. i went to connecticut college. a very pc, liberal arts school. he was one of about 10 openly republican kids on campus, very loud about it. his thick name was sean sphincter. that gives you an idea of his popularity. it was surprising to see where he wound up but i recognize the guy with a college wit amy: we will leave it there. joshua green, senior national correspondent for bloomberg businessweek. his new book is titled, "devil's bargain: steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency." that does it for today's show. democracy now! is looking for feedbackck from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

reyes: a mass migration away from war and violence. more than a million people have fled to europe, a crisis that has burdened its borders, but some have found solace in south america. i'm elaine reyes in washington, d.c., and this is "americas now." syrian refugees head to south america with the expectation of building a new life after running away from a conflict zone. [man shouting in native language] man: maybe brazil l is just station for another movement-- man: yes. man: or maybe i will stay here in brazil. i don't know. but in brazil, i can't survive. i don't know. man: you can't? man: no, because i--there is no job. reyes: brazil opens the door to thousands of syr,