ABC News host Jonathan Karl challenged MAGA influencer Steve Bannon on President-elect Donald Trump's apparent focus on billionaires after promising to look after "the forgotten men and women."
January 19, 2025

ABC News host Jonathan Karl challenged MAGA influencer Steve Bannon on President-elect Donald Trump's apparent focus on billionaires after promising to look after "the forgotten men and women."

During an interview on ABC's This Week program, Karl noted that Trump had recently met with tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

"So what do you make of the fact that sitting there with him, I guess now we're inside, but you're gonna see the three richest Americans ever?" Karl said of Trump's upcoming inauguration. "You're gonna see Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, prime seats."

"That doesn't seem like the forgotten men and women that Trump talked about last time," the ABC News host continued. "Are you surprised to see that?"

"I am not," Bannon insisted. "They're there as supplicants. They're not there as the oligarchs."

"As soon as Zuckerberg said, I've been invited, I'm going," he insisted. "The floodgates opened up, and they were all there knocking, trying to be supplicants. So I look at this and I think most people in our movement look at this as President Trump broke the oligarchs."

"He broke them, and they surrendered."

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