Bannon: Trump will win reelection with '400 electoral votes'

By Josh Delk
10/14/17 12:35 PM EDT

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Saturday that President Trump will "win with 400 electoral votes in 2020," following reports that he had lost faith in the president's ability to complete his current term.

"The populist, nationalist, conservative revolt that's going on, that drove Donald Trump to victory, that drove Judge [Roy] Moore to victory, that will drive 15 candidates to victory in 2018, and I hate to break it Graydon Carter and the good folks at Vanity Fair, but yes, President Trump is not only going to finish this term, he's going to win with 400 electoral votes in 2020," Bannon said during a speech at the Values Voter Summit in Washington.

Bannon reportedly said several months ago that Trump only has a 30 percent chance of finishing his current term, a source told Vanity Fair, who said the president also did not know the function of the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the Cabinet to vote for the president to be removed from office.

Bannon returned to the far-right Breitbart News outlet after leaving the White House in August. The former Trump strategist said he left his post to be a "wingman outside" the White House for Trump to help advance the president's agenda.

In his speech Saturday, Bannon also committed that he would "get to the progressive Democrats," but said that "right now it's a season of war against the GOP establishment."

Bannon laid out his plans to back challengers to establishment Republicans in Congress for the 2018 midterm elections in an interview earlier this week.

"There's a coalition coming together that is going to challenge every Republican incumbent except for Ted Cruz," Bannon told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Monday.

Bannon rallied for former judge Roy Moore in Alabama's Senate GOP runoff last month. Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange (R), who was endorsed by Trump and congressional Republicans.

Trump surpassed the necessary 270 electoral votes in the Electoral College to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Trump won 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 227.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...lectoral-votes