War Room host Steve Bannon called for a "Carthaginian Peace" with Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Wednesday, saying "we’re going to burn it down and salt the earth around it. You’ve overstayed your welcome."
Bannon noted a tweet from political commentator Mike Cernovich from Tuesday that proposed DeSantis dropping out of the running for president and becoming Trump’s attorney general.
"No, I think it’s the third — second or third Punic War. If you remember that great scene out of Patton, remember Patton, when he goes — he’s with Omar Bradley, they’re in the jeeps and Patton says, 'no the battlefield’s over here' and they go 'no General the battlefield’s the exact opposite direction.'"
Bannon recalled that the group in the movie came across Roman ruins, "and Patton gets out of the Jeep and Omar Bradley, who’s you know, Mr. Everyman, he’s sitting there looking at this guy, you know, Karl Malden, looking at George C Scott, because Patton, he admires Patton but he also thinks he’s a nutcase."
Patton, Bannon said, walked up to the ancient arch and said "no, this is the battlefield, I was here 2000 years ago. It’s, you know, it’s Carthage."
"He laid out how the Carthaginians defended against the Roman legions," said Bannon, adding that Cato the Elder, a Roman soldier, senator, and historian, would close out his senate speeches by stating "Carthago delenda est," or "Carthage must be destroyed."
"That is psychological warfare. And what did they do? They said they were going to cut up the peace deal after we defeated you finally, after all these hundreds of years. The Carthaginian Peace, burn it down and salt the earth around it so they can never grow crops again for thousands of years."
"That is the DeSantis situation right now. You’ve overplayed this, you’ve overstayed this. You’re a running dog for the donors class who’s trying to destroy Trump, and destroying Trump, trying to thwart his audience. You see it every day on Fox."
Bannon said that Sean Hannity "hasn’t got the memo," adding that "we’re not for the Ukrainian war, that is a deep state, administrative state war."
"We care about the border of the United States of America. We care about the sovereignty of the United States of America. We care about the self-determination of the citizens of the United States of America. We do not care about Ukraine, and you saw the folks last night in that townhall that had Bobby Kennedy’s back, they're cheering him and Hannity’s, you know, 'well Putin is the worst guy in the world'—That’s not relevant dude."
"Well, that's not relevant dude. Not important if there's a good guy, bad guy, a saint, a devil, doesn't matter. The Murdochs are all in on thwarting you. And now you have a new official title for Rupert Murdoch. The cooler. Anybody he touches, he touched him all in 16. They all lost. Same thing here."
