Bannon Wants Candidates to Challenge Every Republican Incumbent Except CruzOctober 9, 2017 | Olivia Beavers
Stephen Bannon is looking to challenge every sitting GOP lawmaker except Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), saying "no one is safe" as he looks to challenge the Republican establishment in the 2018 midterms and beyond.
"There's a coalition coming together that is going to challenge every Republican incumbent except for Ted Cruz," Bannon told host Sean Hannity on Fox News' "Hannity" on Monday night.
The former White House chief strategist said he plans recruit candidates who can run against the lawmakers who have not faithfully fought to enact Trump's agenda.
"There's a basic agenda that Trump ran on and won. He carried states Republicans haven't carried in living memory — Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. This agenda works. The American people voted for it," he said in part.
"By the way, [Mitch] McConnell would not be majority leader unless Trump — in North Carolina and Missouri and Wisconsin — was able to carry those senators across the finish line. It's incumbent upon them to back President Trump's plan, but you don't see it," Bannon continued.
His comments come around two weeks after an anti-establishment candidate he backed, Roy Moore, defeated incumbent Mississippi Sen. Luther Strange in a GOP primary for the special election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
McConnell and his allies spent heavily in their attempts to defeat Moore, who made opposition to the Senate leader a key part of his campaign.
Bannon, who returned to his role leading Breitbart News after his stint in the White House, said his team is "spending a ton of time with the grassroots organizations to make sure these candidates are fully vetted," saying they will be candidates with experience who are ready to take office unlike 2010 when the Tea Party movement was first gaining momentum.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/354641-bannon-is-recruiting-2018-candidates-to-challenge-every-republican