Trump adviser calls white tiolists 'clowns'

“Ethno-tiolism — it’s losers,” Bannon reportedly said in an interview published by magazine American Prospect on Wednesday. Bannon’s comments follow a weekend of turmoil in the US after a white tiolist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last week turned violent following clashes between far-right and counter-protestors, CNN reported. The rally, attended by neo-zis and white supremacists, was in protest over the removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army in the 19th-century American Civil War.

One woman was killed when a suspected far-right sympathiser drove a car into a crowd of counter-protestors. In the days following the incident, President Dold Trump made a series of remarks — some off the cuff — that were strongly rebuked by both Democrats and Republicans. In the interview, Bannon was asked if there was a connection between the economic tiolism that he supports and the white tiolism seen in Charlottesville. “These guys are a collection of clowns,” Bannon added.

Bannon, the former editor of the far-right news website Breitbart, is a controversial figure within the White House. A source close to Bannon told CNN he did not believe he was being interviewed when he spoke with the co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect. Bannon and the White House did not comment on the interview. (IANS)