Steve Bannon Thinks These Trump Policies Would've Made Martin Luther King Jr. "Proud"

Before and after his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. maintained a peaceful, harmonious, and tolerant philosophy. His is a philosophy some would say President Trump has forgone, yet, former White House aide Steve Bannon says MLK would be proud of Trump, according to BBC's Newsnight.

“Donald Trump has the lowest black unemployment in history. Donald Trump has the lowest Hispanic unemployment in 25 years." Bannon said in his interview with the U.K.'s BBC Newsnight program. “If you look at the policies of Donald Trump, OK, anybody — Martin Luther King would be proud of him and what he's done for the black and hispanic community for jobs.”

Bannon then went on to say that MLK would be happy that the president "finally stopped the illegal alien labor forces coming in and competing with them every day and destroying the schools and destroying the healthcare."

“His economic policies to black — by the way, it’s the lowest unemployment in recorded history … Look at the unemployment we had in the black community five years ago,” Bannon went on to say.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment among African Americans hit a record low of 6.6 percent in April 2018. Hispanic unemployment also hit a record low of 4.8 percent the same month. As Bloomberg reports, these rates are still much too high, but show progress nonetheless.

In fact, earlier this year in January, Trump took to Twitter to boast about how black employment was at its lowest rate because of his policies (as well as make a jab at Jay-Z). But as Newsweek reports, while both rates have been declining steadily since 2011, it's not necessarily all thanks to Trump's presidency.

The Houston Chronicle says that there are different factors that affect the unemployment rate, like national economic factors, seasonal fluctuations in different industries, and technological advances. According to the Washington Post, "Black unemployment fell fairly consistently from 2010 on, as did the rates for whites and Hispanics."

Before his involvement with Trump's presidential campaign, Bannon ran the news outlet Breitbart News, a controversial site that has been tied to the "rise of the so called alt-right," Newsweek reported. But after he left the White House, his and Trump's relationship seems to have fallen apart. In journalist Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, which makes lots of claims of what goes on in the White House behind-the-scenes, Bannon described the 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving the campaign, Donald Trump Jr., and Russian lawyer to Wolff as "treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad sh*t.”

Trump responded promptly, dubbing him with the nickname "Sloppy Steve" saying that he "lost his mind, according to Newsweek. Bannon later went on to apologize to both the president and Donald Trump Jr. on his radio show.

Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around. My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda—as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama.

Despite the fractured relationship between Bannon and Trump, though, Bannon continues to push the president's agenda. According to Newsweek, Bannon has recently been touring around Europe to learn from their populist and hard-right electoral victories. “Nothing will ever come between us and President Trump and his agenda, don’t worry about that,” Bannon went on to say on his show. “Don’t worry about us and Trump and the MAGA agenda. We are tight on this as we’ve ever been.”