Rep. Pete King on Thursday became the first Republican in Congress to call for President Donald Trump to fire chief strategist Steve Bannon.
"It’s important for the president to fire Steve Bannon," the New York representative told WABC-TV. "He should go."
Bannon has been under fire for his alt-right ties — and President Trump gave him a tepid endorsement in a heated session with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
King cited Bannon's interview with The American Prospect published Wednesday, in which the strategist touted racial divisiveness as a critical way to defeat Democrats and undercut Trump's tough position on North Korea.
"The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," Bannon told Robert Kuttner in an interview that began after the strategist called the writer Tuesday. "I want them to talk about racism every day.
"If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
King, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told WABC that Bannon was "exploiting the racial issue.
"That can’t be allowed."
On Pyongyang, Bannon told the magazine that "there’s no military solution, forget it.
"Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us."
King told WABC that those comments were "undercutting the president" in his tough responses to dictator Kim Jong Un's threats.
"To me," King said, "his time in the White House should be over."
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