Trump Touts 'Tremendous Strides' in Four Weeks
KING: Well, if you watch a show called "Inside Politics" my guess is you've heard the name Stephen Bannon. He is the president's advisor, was the former Breitbart News executive, now, a senior advisor to the President of the White House, a key architect of the America first nationalist message. We don't see him much publicly. So it was a big event when he appeared publicly at the conservative conference yesterday laying out his view of the Trump agenda.</s>STEVE BANNON, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: I kind of breaking out the three verticals of three buckets. The first is kind of national security and sovereignty, and that's your Intelligence, the Defense Department, and Homeland Security. The second line of work is what I referred to as economic nationalism, and that is Wilbur Ross of commerce, Steve Mnuchin of Treasury, Lighthizer at Trade, Peter Navarro, Stephen Miller, these people that we're rethinking how we're going to reconstruct the -- our trade arrangements around the world. The third broadly line of work is what is deconstruction of the administrative state.</s>KING: Fascinating to see because we don't see him publicly that much, number one. Number two, whether you might disagree with the agenda, but a very articulate lay-out, communications strategy for the agenda. I want to start at the end there. The deconstruction of the administrative state. A very conservative federalist approach that Washington has amassed way too much power and Steve Bannon views his job as Donald Trump's senior advisor to help the President blow a lot of it up.</s>HEMINGWAY: Right. Not just too much power, but too much on accountable power. And you see this with the agencies going rogue and people having different ideas than either the President or Congress that they report to. You know, a lot of the problems with Obamacare came out not from the bill, but the way HHS interpreted the bill. A lot of the restrictions on religious liberty came out from the administrative state, not from the original legislation. So this is a very big animating issue. And it is interesting to hear someone actually articulated on a national state.</s>RAJU: I think this is probably the most concise argument that anyone has method as you say that anyone from the White House has delivered about what Trump's world view is, probably even more so than Trump himself to hear that the deconstruction of administrative state. I mean, that is an interesting argument -- an interesting way to discuss how Trump views the world. Probably in a way that, you know, Trump may himself start to talk more about going forward because of explained and sell his agenda --</s>KING: And he -- the President's -- not a criticism, it just a -- he talks more transactional. I'm for this and for this and for this. This is the deal we're making. Steve Bannon, they're laying out an ideological conservative America first and nationalist when it comes to the foreign policy, national security trade stuff, but a very states rights, you know, let's deconstruct Washington. That is a little bit of Reagan and Goldwater. You know, Reagan was unable to deliver as much as he promised there.</s>TALEY: But Reagan was still on establishmentarianism. And he believed in systems and in, you know, packing order and certain amount of chivalry. And there are these two pillars of his remarks yesterday. One is nationalism. One is deconstruction, which also goes along with the words disruption. And it's not just the administrative state in terms of agencies. It is all of the way you consider the administrative state of Washington. It is disrupting and deconstructing the power of Congress, the power of the press, the power of institutions that put -- that central core inside the White House in check.</s>KING: That's right. Let's take his voice in one more time because we often talk about the politicians keep their promises but a lot of controversies. You know, is President Trump going to reach out to those bill forms. President Trump going to do things they didn't promise they can't. Hey, here's Steve Bannon on how he thinks the president will proceed.</s>BANNON: He's laid out an agenda with those speeches for the promises he made. And our job every day is just to execute on that. It's to simply get a path to how those get executed. And he's maniacally focused on that.</s>KING: In other words, go back and look at what he said during the campaign, and that's what you're going to get.</s>KUCINICH: So, yes. Is anyone surprise about what he's doing and he's actually -- he's executing on what he said. But it's fascinating because Bannon has been saying a lot of this for a very long time. And to the extent that Trump has just adapted it and is executing it has been a fascinating thing so much.</s>RAJU: It's also a time there's a long way to go in this presidency.</s>KUCINICH: Right.</s>RAJU: There's a lot that still needs to happen. We'll see if that -- he can -- they can still say that what you're telling.</s>HEMINGWAY: What he was also signaling was that it's very hard to achieve this and that they have all the forces in Washington raid against him was asking people to support and hold them accountable.</s>KING: Yes. They're asking CPAC to stay on the team to help and to push when necessary. We'll see you back here on Monday, "Inside Politics" Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. as well. After a quick break, Wolf Blitzer is in the chair.