Bannon: Where were we yesterday? I think I was in your face shouting at you.

ZEIT: You were.

Bannon: Come on Dude, I was not!

ZEIT: You were about Merkel actually. That's what I would like to talk to you about, talk about Germany some more on this one. You criticized…

Bannon: You know I'm German!?

ZEIT: Are you?

Bannon: Yes, my mom's maiden name is HERR – H-E-R-R.

ZEIT: Okay.

Bannon: So my mother was German, she was German and Irish and there's some other German on my Dad's site, but mainly we're Irish-German. Her name was H-E-R-R, they were in Baltimore, the Germans in Baltimore.

ZEIT: Well and still, you very sharply criticized Merkel yesterday...

Bannon: …I did, and from the stage…

ZEIT: ...yes, from the stage, too...

Bannon: ...and just make sure that we're consistent I did it from the stage in Prague, too. And

ZEIT: I saw that, yes, absolutely.

Bannon: And I think I did on BBC, too, didn't I?

ZEIT: That I do believe, yes. And you criticized her migration or immigration policy...

Bannon: But she knows that because I was very plain with them when they came to the White House. She came in March, the first trip?

ZEIT: Yes.

Bannon: It was the first trip. I sat aside with the national security advisor in a breakout meeting, he and I with General McMaster. I am very upfront, I don't try to hide the football here. You know, because Germany is such a great country and such a great people. And so absolutely fundamental to the Judea-christian west. And I just was very upfront with him, at that time, our obligations and what we were doing. This was during the whole initial hassle about Nato and everything like this and everything we were doing... And I think I talked about it in Prague, where we were putting up, you know, 30 billion dollars in this assessment, in the '17 budget, when we got there, there was a huge shortfall just on operating material and equipment and training that the Pentagon came to us and we stepped up another for another 30 billion dollars from a previous year. And we had to basically give the Democrats 30 Billion Dollars of social spending. So it was like 50 or 60 billion dollars overall.

And when the Germans showed up. I mean, our big concern were the two percent. I mean President Trump was very focused. The General Secretary for the NATO had come and he said: Look, it's a problem, and here's (inaudible) problem is Germany. You know, they are the wealthiest country and for whatever reason they are just not getting there. And so I had a very blunt conversation with the German National Security Advisor.

ZEIT: The German National Security Advisor? Do you remember...

Bannon: ...Yeah, whoever the National Security Advisor was, whatever his name is will be the guy. You gotta remember I had a very rocky history. I had the German ambassador to the United States, who is...

ZEIT: ...Peter Wittig…

Bannon: ...yeah, I've seen him several times since he left the White House. I have a pretty good working relationship with him, I really admire him quite a bit. But he came over, I think in the first two or three weeks of the administration. And he and I had another very blunt conversation just like the interview I had with you. I don't try to hide this because Germany is such central part of, you know, Europe. If you go back and look, he did a detailed analysis of our conversation which we had in the chief of staff's office. That all got leaked. I think it got leaked by the foreign minister or the foreign minister's office, started with: what I was saying was so outrageous and of such concern that they leaked it. And so I started with a thing – and I'm not a guy who points at: deep state, deep state. And they actually called me and said they said had never seen the foreign minister, or anything the Germans… You want a water? ...had worked like that.

ZEIT: I'm good, thank you.

Bannon: (To his assistant) Do you remember when they leaked my thing to the German ambassador?

Bannon: If you go back and check and you google it, I think it caused a big controversy I think in Germany because people were so shocked. At first I think they were a little bit shocked about what I was saying but more importantly they were shocked because it was actually leaked out the press because these were actually private conversations, one on one.

ZEIT: Isn't Germany's economic strength, its economic surplus exactly the kind of nationalist policy that you also would advice?

Bannon: Yeah, I'd like Germany's policy. If you go back… Paul Ryan, when first came, Paul Ryan... On our big tax cut, Paul Ryan had this thing called border adjustable (??) tax. And he had this entire program, quite complicated, that I was a huge advocate of. In fact, Ryan briefed me in a four or five hour meeting on January 3rd or 4th in Washington. Because remember, if you go back in time… Because Congress and them can't handle multiple complex things at once, so we're gonna do healthcare first, tax cut second, infrastructure third. And Ryan had worked on this tax cut for seven years. This tax cut was a really a complete redoing of the tax code to help industry. When I saw it I said: this is the most economic nationalist tax policy I've seen. He called it responsible nationalism, so we had a laugh. I also said it had no chance of going trough. It was Ryan and you want to check this later if you want to do a follow up – they actually had modeled it after Germany's... part of the construct was the German model. To make it more export driven, nationalistic.

ZEIT: But then you do criticize Germany for it.

Bannon: No I don't. Not at all. I don't criticize Germany (inaudible) for its economic policy. Not whatsoever. I admire what the German's have done – a lot.

ZEIT: So you think tariffs are wrong? The American tariffs on European, on German goods?

Bannon: No, no, no. Our whole tax cut, the one we eventually went with… By the way, just because I admire it, doesn't mean I want it…

Go back in time. When the Ryan tax plan collapsed because it was too complicated and lack of support by the Koch's and lack of support by the retail industry, Walmart, because he was trying in one fell swoop to change our model more to a manufacturing export model, much like Germany's was. When that collapsed, and it collapsed in the first 90 days, we went back to what eventually was put together was kind of what I call the last squeeze out of the lemon of the Reagan type tax cuts, cutting marginal tax rates for corporations. The reason people are complaining and if you saw Lenny Davis' debate, Lenny's 1.5 trillion which he goes crazy at. He tucks everything at the income. Really, the essential part of the tax cut was corporate. The dramatic thing of like from 35 percent to 20 percent, we tried to get lower than that, that was to compete with Germany.

And the reason the populist did not stop that tax bill, was simply by the point that they made a compelling case that this was a strategic move to be competitive on tax rates with Germany. So no, I think what Germany has done on the industrial site… Now, for it's other European neighbors and the European project, that's a different thing and that's for the Europeans to discuss. But I'm a great admirer of what the German's have done as far as their economy goes. That's not my problem.

So what the - I don't wan't to call it doctrine, because that goes to far – what America first means, is not – and this is what we tried to explain to chancellor Merkel – is not America alone and it's not America isolationist. It's America engaged in where it's vital national security is.

My issue with the Germans is the fact that they are so wealthy, they have a budget surplus, they're, they and the French are the foundational elements of the European project, they should be the backbone of NATO, and yet I sit there and they're not spending anything on defense. They're really a protectorate of the United States. And the only thing I'm saying is that that has to change over time, right?