George W. Bush’s presidency most destructive ever: Steve Bannon

Los Angeles, Oct 21 (IANS) Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has continued with his attacks on the Republican elite, particularly lashing against George W. Bush saying that his presidency was the "most destructive ever".

"There has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s," Bannon said on Friday in his speech at the California Republican Party convention.

Bannon criticised Bush after the latter warned at an event in New York this week about the rising division and intolerance in the US, while denouncing the use of bullying and prejudice by political leaders, reports Efe news.

President Donald Trump’s former advisor claimed that Bush did not know what he was saying or doing, "just like it was when he was President of the United States" further adding that "President Bush, to me, embarrassed himself".

Before an audience that greeted him with great applause, Bannon made a 40-minute speech in which he summed up his nationalist arguments, against Washington’s ruling class and, above all, against the Republican party’s leadership, who he questioned for not supporting measures of the President in the Congress and Senate.

Bannon praised Trump’s victory in 2016 by ensuring that the elites wanted to destroy him for being "an existential threat to the system."

He said that US at the moment is in a crisis which required the people to act urgently, adding that the working class has responded to Trump and his party’s message.

Bannon spoke of a revolt against the dominant Republican elite and advocated for a broad coalition of conservatives, nationalists, classical, libertarian and evangelical Republicans to curb the progressives.

The former advisor spoke in California, a state where the Republican Party has very little presence and in which White House Democrat Hillary Clinton won more than 4 million votes against Trump.

Bannon also slammed the proclamation of California as a "sanctuary state", a legislative measure that elevated the entire state to the laws of "sanctuary cities", which are those that decided at a municipal level not to collaborate with the services of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the persecution of immigrants in an irregular situation.