Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean called President-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist and Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon a “Nazi” during an interview Sunday.
Speaking with journalist Evan Solomon of Canada’s CTV, Mr. Dean described Mr. Trump as “a complicated guy.”
“He appoints a reasonable person, who’s much more conservative than I am, but someone you can talk to, as his Chief of Staff — and then the senior adviser’s a Nazi,” he said of Reince Priebus and Mr. Bannon, respectively, The Hill reported.
Pressed on whether he meant to use such a damning term, Mr. Dean responded, “Well, he’s anti-Semitic, he’s anti-black and he’s anti-women.”
“It’s a big word,” he said. “I don’t usually use it unless somebody’s really anti-Semitic, really misogynist, really anti-black.”
Mr. Dean, who is in the running again to be the DNC’s next chairman, said Mr. Bannon’s White House appointment made him “very nervous” and said it called into question the president-elect’s judgment.
“We don’t know what to expect from Donald Trump,” he said. “When you run a campaign based on hate, which is what he did, you run a terrible risk of somehow liberating people’s worst instincts.”
He also described Breitbart News as a “far-right, anti-Semitic publication.”
“You go look at Breitbart News, you’ll make up your own mind,” Mr. Dean said.
Mr. Bannon has been on leave as executive chairman of Breitbart News since being appointed CEO of the Trump campaign in August, Breitbart reported.
Democrats have widely criticized Mr. Bannon’s appointment as Mr. Trump’s chief strategist because of Breitbart’s ties to the controversial “alt-right” movement. Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak, an Orthodox Jew, has staunchly defended Mr. Bannon, calling him a “friend of the Jewish people” and a “defender of Israel.”
