The Grand Design - Steve Bannon

The Economist editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, and deputy editor, Ed Carr interviewed Steve Bannon, one of the chief architects of the MAGA Movement on October 23rd 2025

This is a summary of the main points. Transcript and YouTube link below.

The Purpose of the MAGA Movement

The Economist: Let's assume you're successful. Just paint a picture for me of what America looks like when you're successful.

• It’s about the little guy – the system depends on him
• A return to capitalism – NOT the corporatism we now have
• We are in a political war

Economist: So, what's the end point of a war?

• The end point is we're in charge.
• We control the institutions.
• We control the political process.
• We create an entrepreneurial capitalism paradise for the average people
• And we're not going to back off one inch until we get it. And guess what? We're winning.

Economist: Isn’t it your responsibility to calm things down.

• Not to calm things down at all; to warn people! What planet are you living on?
• We're in a revolutionary time both technologically, geopolitically, financially.
• We must go to the ramparts. You need to rally people to say no.
• No matter what you do the MAGA movement can't be beaten if we don't quit.
• You ain't seen nothing yet. We're now getting into the middle of this fight.
• We're never going to apologize. We're never going to say we're sorry.
• All we care about is victory.
• We're in the ascendant and they're in decline.

Economist: Isn’t it better to bring change through evolution rather than revolution.

• This is not evolution.
• The House (of Representatives) must be permanently defendable by the MAGA movement.
• A maximalist strategy with a sense of urgency
• You seize the institutions and that's what we're doing right now.

Economist: when people feel shut out of power and interest groups cannot get representation and cannot get an input into the way that policies made, that's precisely when you end up with civil war.

• I think no, … the Democratic party will have to change (to be like MAGA) if they want to take back power.
• We have to seize the institutions. Seize them and then purge them.
• This is serious. People have spent years thinking this whole plan through.
• We must strike and we must strike now.
• This is the age of Trump? He's totally redefined politics and power in America.
• He stopped the managed decline of the country by the elites of the nation.

Economist: And does he need a third term in order to see that job through?

Well, he's going to get a third term.

Economist: So, Trump 28?

Trump is going to be president 28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.

Economist: What about the 22nd amendment?

• There's a plan and President Trump will be the president in 28.
• We have to finish what we started, and the way we finish it is through Trump,
• Trump is a vehicle of divine providence.
• He's an instrument of divine will.

Economist: I think what you are going to what you will end up with a populist justification for a quasi-dictatorship.

That's not true at all.

Economist: It sounds like it.

Trump is not a dictator. He’s a negotiator - he's having trade-offs all the time.

Economist: You've just spent the last 20 minutes telling me we have to smash the other side. There's no room for debate. There's no room for compromise.

We must smash them.

Economist: And now you're telling me this is a negotiation.

• The Constitution embodies the will of the American people.
• We need to finish what we started.
• President Trump is a providential instrument to finish that, to finish this job.

Economist: You were something of a populist globalist in when you spent a lot of time in Europe.

The Global Picture

• We're not isolationist but I don't want to be in the bloodlands in Ukraine or in the Middle East.
• I'm all for direct engagement with the Chinese Communist Party

The European project.

• In 2012, 13 & 14, Nigel Farage would come over give these talks about getting Britain's sovereignty back.
• We had all the populists; the Alternative for Deutschland and the Salvini group etc
• people in Fox
• We are all fighting a common fight.

Economist: Give me a give me a kind of scorecard just going around Italy, France, Germany, Britain of where these parties lie. Will Farage be a prime minister?

• Of course he's going to be the next Prime Minister.
• France is going to be it's going to be Front National … or I hope it will be Le Pen
• I'm really enthusiastic about what those people have accomplished because as hard as our fight was, they had state media suppress them.
• Because it's much more concentration of power and wealth over there.
• They had everybody fight them.
• And look at everywhere from Hungary to Poland to Germany to Italy to Vox and Spain.
• Everywhere we're getting momentum.
• As long as you don't quit, they will surrender.

MAGA influence on Europe

• Nigel's come our way. Nigel would never talk about mass deportations. He's now talking about that.
• I think we (MAGA) are actually helping drive some of those people to the part of the right that you actually need to be to fix the problems.

The Age of Trump

• This is the age of Trump and we have to get all the squeeze out of the lemon.
• This is why 2028's so important.
• We have to finish what we started.
• Trump knew in 21 that they were going to try to bankrupt him. They're going to try to destroy his family. They're going to try to put him in jail and they're going to try to assassinate him.
• He has more moral courage than any political person we've had, I believe, since Abraham Lincoln.
• If you look at Trump over the arc of history, .. he's equivalent of of Moses.
• He has led our people back right now to the bank of the Promised Land
• We're very close to returning America to her greatness,
• Make America great again.

Economist: I don't agree with a lot of what you've said, but I have a much better understanding of what it is you're trying to do.

Full Transcript with some editing

Link to YouTube Video

Steve Bannon, welcome to The Insider.

You definitely have a very different worldview. You're a populist nationalist. We're classical liberals, but we really think it's important to understand world your worldview better.

I want to start by really getting you to paint a picture for me of what the America that you want to create is. I mean, you are now partway through the MAGA revolution. Let's assume you're successful. Just paint a picture for me of what America looks like when you're successful.

In America where the little guy, the person that the system is based upon, the working class and middle class in our country, sharing the prosperity we actually have. A return to capitalism because we don't have capitalism today ….. this is corporatism. So, we have to break that.

We have to give the little guy an opportunity to thrive since the whole system rests upon him. We're in a political war - I don't say that every day.

So, what's the end point of a war?

The end point is we are in charge. We control the institutions. We control the political process. We actually have reclaimed this country, turned it around, put citizens first and created an entrepreneurial capitalism paradise for the average people in this country who happen to be citizens. And we're not going to back off one inch until we get it. And guess what? We're winning.

You use the war world war a lot. If you really think there is a risk of civil war and there and the situation is as bad as you are saying, don't you have a responsibility as someone who sees this and who's a student of history and has seen what has happened in history to calm things down.

Not to calm things down at all; to warn people! Do you think if we calm things down, they're going to stop? What planet are you living on? This is my problem with this whole concept of liberal debate. We're in a revolutionary time both technologically, geopolitically, financially. You're talking, you in this magazine, you tell me we're heading to financial Armageddon. There's no other way you can read this.

Hang on. If you don't warn people about it and say

We must go to the ramparts. Because if you're just passive and docile and just flick the channel and watch the National Football League and go to Taylor Swift concerts, it's over. You need to rally people to say no. You represent from time immemorial, from every patriot's grave back to the beginning, the basic working man and woman that has always saved this country in moments of crisis. In the revolution, in the Civil War, in the Great Depression, World War II, it's always come back to the little guy. This is the fourth turning.

The strength of the populist nationalist MAGA movement in this country is we're anti-fragile. We're resilient. You can give us your best shot. You can put us in prison. You can take our credit cards away. You can debank us. You can deplatform users. You can have all the tech stuff that happened. We can't be beaten if we don't quit. And if that takes hot rhetoric, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Because we're now getting into the middle of this fight. And we’re never going to kowtow to these people. We're never going to get on our knees to these people. We're never going to apologize. We're never going to say we're sorry. All we care about is victory begets victory begets victory. And we know that we're in the ascendant and they're in decline.

So Steve, when you when you look at history and you map the lessons of history onto the situation today, the crisis we're in today, is it your belief that the only way through this crisis is through some sort of conflagration? And if so, do you think your role is to accelerate that to bring it out so that it happens fast and you come out on the other side better and faster? Or is it to stop the crisis? Is it a belief that, you know what, we can work to stop the crisis, and actually change is better brought about through evolution rather than revolution.

This is not evolution. I think that to avoid actual civil conflict, which I think you're seeing right now, the beginning of the harbinger of it. If you want to stop that you have to bind together tighter.

We as a populist nationalist movement as a MAGA movement we need to do for example the redistricting fights. This is why I was down in Texas. We need to get the House (of Representatives) in a situation that is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement. Right? So, it's a blocking mechanism and take that. Like I said, you have a maximalist strategy with a sense of urgency, and you seize the institutions and that's what we're doing right now.

I don't see how that is a recipe for diffusing this crisis. I think that what happens is, when people feel shut out of power and interest groups cannot get representation and cannot get an input into the way that policies made, that's precisely when you end up with civil war.

I think no, because I think the mechanism will be that people in the Democratic party will adjust and change. They’ll say, hey we have to start winning elections and we have to have a message that can resonate with many Americans that we can start getting back control of the House of Representatives. We can take the Senate and most importantly, we take the presidency. I think that you'll force the civil war to be inside of those guys (and they'll say these radicals are saying violence and – not clear what he means)

We have to seize the institutions. Seize them and then purge them. We seize the institutions, purge them. And that's why you've got guys; it's not the Doge crap.

This is serious, people like Russ Vought and others that have spent years thinking this whole plan through. We must strike and we must strike now. I know all the haters hate it, but is this is the age of Trump? He's totally redefined politics and power in America. And how did he do that with no political training? Because he was a populist and he was a nationalist at the very moment you didn't have populist nationalism. He stopped the managed decline of the country by the elites of the nation.

And does he need a third term in order to see that job through?

Well, he's going to get a third term.

So, Trump 28?

Trump is going to be president 28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.

So what about the 22nd amendment?

There are many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is, but there's a plan and President Trump will be the president in 28. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the president of the United States and the country needs him to be president of the United States.

We have to finish what we started. And the way we finish it through Trump, Trump is a vehicle. I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument. He's very imperfect. He's not churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. And you could tell this by how he's pulled this off. We need him for at least one more term, right? And he'll get that in 28.

You're not driving me crazy. I'm simply trying to understand the coherence of the things you've just told me in the last few minutes. On the one hand, you've said the Constitution is fit for purpose, secondly, you've said that President Trump needs another term, even though the 22nd amendment makes pretty clear that he cannot have another term. Why does it make that clear? Because he's on his second term already.

At some point in time, we will make sure we go through (Xany?) and define all those terms.

But you will be undermining the spirit of that amendment even if you find some way around it.

If the American people with the mechanisms we have put Trump back in office are the American people tearing up the constitution? Would that be tearing up? Would the American people be going against the spirit of the constitution?

I think yes actually because I think what you are going to what you will end up with a populist justification for a quasi-dictatorship.

That's not true at all.

It sounds like it.

Trump is not a dictator. Did you just see the compromises he had to make on the Big Beautiful bill? You see the compromises he has to do on everything, on accommodating Zalensky. President Trump is nothing but a series of negotiations to kind of keep this thing rolling forward, where he's having trade-offs all the time.

You've just been you just spent the last 20 minutes telling me we have to smash the other side. There's no room for debate. There's no room for compromise.

We must smash them.

And now you're telling me this is a negotiation.

The only way President Trump wins in 2028 and continues to stay in office is by the will of the American people. Okay? And the will of the American people is what the Constitution embodies. And so I think we're going to be in good hands there. We need to finish what we started. And President Trump is the instrument, a providential instrument to finish that, to finish this job.

A few minutes ago, you talked about uh populist nationalists and populist internationalists.

Globalists

You were something of a populist globalist in when you spent a lot of time in Europe.

I'm not populist globalist at all. It was all national. Look, we're a nation in the world. We're not isolationist. I've never said that. I'm non-interventionist. I don't want to be in the bloodlands in Ukraine or in the Middle East. It's a sideshow. I'm all for direct engagement with the Chinese Communist Party because we see what they're trying to do. Now, I'd like not to send troops there (Where? Taiwan?) because there's other ways we can do that without putting in people.

The European project. Remember in this very room is where Nigel Farage first talked about Brexit before it even became a thing. We had a gathering of the beginning of the MAGA movement. This is in like in 2012,13, 14. Nigel would come over and we'd host these huge dinners and Nigel would stand up and give these talks about getting Britain's sovereignty back. We had all the populists; the Alternative for Deutschland and the Salvini group … and people in Fox all these different people would come because we saw they were all fighting a common fight.

Give me a give me a kind of scorecard just going around Italy, France, Germany, Britain of where these parties lie. Will Farage be a prime minister?

Of course he'll be prime minister. I mean look you have you have two parties that are the Tory party's 250 years old or older. If you take Labour and Tories right now the Reform party is bigger than both. I think it's 36% of those two are 35%. Of course he's going to be the next Prime Minister. And France is going to be it's going to be Front National … or I hope it will be Le Pen and not the the younger guy. If you think I'm enthusiastic about what we've accomplished here, I'm really enthusiastic about what those people have accomplished because as hard as our fight was, they had state media suppress them. Because it's much more concentration of power and wealth over there. They had everybody fight them. And look at everywhere from Hungary to Poland to Germany to Italy to Vox and Spain. Everywhere we're getting momentum.

It's not perfect. I told people at the time, you're not going to win everything. It's a process. Just look at the critical path. Look at the event horizon. Keep your heads down and remember you're not alone. And you're anti-fragile. As long as you don't quit, they will surrender. As long as you just keep pounding.

And look at Farage. Look what he's done over his career to do this. I mean, he's brought British sovereignty back and now he's going to be the prime minister one day.

Now Nigel's come our way. Nigel forever would never talk about mass deportations. He's now talking about that. I think we're actually helping drive some of those people to the part of the right that you actually need to be to fix the problems.

This is the age of Trump and we have to get all the squeeze out of the lemon. This is why 28's so important. We have to finish what we started because Trump knew in 21 that they were going to try to bankrupt him. They're going to try to destroy his family. They're going to try to put him in jail and they're going to try to assassinate him.

I would talk to him about this. He understood that he has more moral courage than any political person we've had, I believe, since Abraham Lincoln.

If you look at Trump over the arc of history, what he's accomplished and what he's been able to to lead us to, I mean, he's equivalent of of Moses. I mean, he has led our people back right now to the bank of the Promised Land to make sure that we're very close to actually redoing this, making the changes that have to be made to save our country and to return America to her greatness, make America great again.

I don't agree with a lot of what you've said, but I have a much better understanding of what it is you're trying to do.