Nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck said Thursday that White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s “economic nationalism” agenda is not conservative.
Bannon, in a rare public appearance, outlined President Donald Trump’s agenda at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“He talked about populism and nationalism a lot,” Beck told Anderson Cooper on “AC360.” “They were laying the ground that we are a White House of economic nationalism and populism. That is not conservative and really, I think very, very dangerous.”
“When he talks about economic nationalism, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to him?” Cooper asked, to which Beck replied, “It means tariffs. And tariffs, as you know, Anderson, it was Smoot-Hawley, the gigantic tariff in 1933 that set the Great Depression.”
“Whenever a country feels that they are losing their place in the world, they slap tariffs on. And that will just start to slap more tariffs on from other countries,” he added.
Beck also said Bannon has repeatedly talked about “burning the system down to the ground,” a policy that he says most conservatives would be against.
“We are for conserving the Constitution of America,” Beck said.
Beck, a fierce critic of the Trump administration admitted the President has delivered on some of his campaign promises, like nominating a conservative to the Supreme Court.
“However, they weren’t separating that from the nationalist populist talk at the main conservative stage.”