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Steve Bannon claims to be the 'Thomas Cromwell in the court of Donald Trump'
Steve Bannon, President-elect Donald Trump's controversial Chief Strategist, has said the billionaire will lead a movement to rebuild America that will be "as exciting as the 1930s" and could see Republicans governing for 50 years.
Mr Bannon, who has been accused of links to America's far right, denied any such sympathies in his first interview since his appointment.
Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter at Trump Tower in New York the former movie producer said: "I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist."
But he added: "Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they (liberals and the media) get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing."
Of his own position in the Trump Administration he said: "I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
Mr Bannon, 62, formerly head of the right wing news website Breitbart, said both Democrats and Republicans had betrayed the working man in favour of the the "donor class" and the "metrosexual bubble".
But Mr Trump had created a new movement that would help the working class, he said.
He told the Hollywood Reporter: "It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up.
"We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution. Conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement."
He accused globalists of "gutting" the American working class and creating a middle class in Asia.
"The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f----- over. If we deliver we’ll get 60 per cent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years," he told the Hollywood Reporter.
Mr Bannon also criticised the media as the "ultimate symbol of what’s wrong with this country" and said it had "no f------" idea what’s going on.
He even attacked Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, the conservative TV news network.
Mr Bannon said: "They got it more wrong than anybody. Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump. To him, Trump is a radical."
He called Mr Trump the greatest American orator since William Jennings Bryan a century ago and said even at the lowest point of the campaign he always knew the billionaire would win.
“I knew that she (Hillary Clinton) couldn’t close" he told the Hollywood Reporter. He added: "I told you so."
The Hollywood Reporter interview, conducted on Nov 15, gave an insight in to events inside Trump Tower as the billionaire prepared for his new Administration.
Senior campaign figures including former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani and Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were conferring in corridors.
Reince Priebus, Mr Trump's new chief of staff, was said to be "in and out" of Mr Bannon's office and Ted Cruz, the former presidential candidate, waited patiently outside for an appointment.