The former screenwriting partner of Donald Trump’s senior aide Steve Bannon said that he once mused that it might be beneficial to restrict African Americans’ voting access.
Writer Julia Jones told the New York Times in an interview that Bannon, who was recently named as Trump’s chief White House strategist, would occasionally claim that some people were genetically superior and once suggested that the vote should be limited to property owners.
Jones said she told Bannon that such a policy would “exclude a lot of African-Americans.”
According to Jones, Bannon replied, “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
Jones asked specifically about his longtime executive assistant Wendy Colbert, who is black.
“She’s different. She’s family,” Jones said he replied.
Before joining Trump’s team, Bannon helped transform Breitbart News into a “platform” for the alt-right, an amorphous coalition of white nationalists, anti-Semites, and Islamophobes. He also put out a number of films boosting right-wing politicians, including the 2004 Ronald Reagan documentary “In the Face of Evil,” which he co-wrote with Jones.
Jones, who described herself to the Times as very liberal, insisted that Bannon was “not a racist” but instead “using the alt-right—using them for power.”
