Fox News host Mark Levin blasted former Trump strategist Steve Bannon for insisting that “there is a plan” for Donald Trump to serve as president for a Constitutionally-banned third term, warning MAGA supporters that “Bannon’s playing you” with his claims.
The shot across the bow isn’t the first time that Levin and the War Room host have engaged in MAGA-on-MAGA violence, as the two have regularly lashed out at each other – particularly this past summer over America’s involvement in the brief Israel-Iran war.
With the president long toying with the idea and trolling Democrats about the possibility of a 2028 run despite the 22nd Amendment explicitly forbidding it, Bannon suddenly rekindled the notion of a Trump third term last week when he asserted there was a way to circumvent the Constitution.
“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon told The Economist. “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is… but there is a plan.”
With the far-right podcaster and convicted fraudster also claiming that Trump was an “instrument of divine will,” suggesting that the president was more like a king than a democratically elected leader, Trump told reporters Monday that he “would love to” run again as he has “the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.” (The latest YouGov poll currently has the president with a 39 percent approval rating.)
With GOP lawmakers pouring cold water on the president’s flirtation with a third term, Trump eventually relented Tuesday night saying that he’s “not allowed to run” for president again, though he said it was “sad” that he couldn’t because of his supposedly high approval numbers.
Meanwhile, after House Speaker Mike Johnson said “the constraints of the Constitution” prevent a third Trump term, Bannon berated the Republican leader.
“Polly Pockets, you’ve got no say-so in this, OK? Just shut up and sit off in the corner,” Bannon groused, before suggesting that Congress was only a rubber stamp for the president. “You’re running the Duma right now. Just go over and run the Duma.”
During his Tuesday radio show, Levin took aim at Bannon and referenced the fact that the ex-Trump adviser pleaded guilty to defrauding donors who invested in a private effort to build a border wall.
“So if you see some poison that is spreading, some cancer that is metastasizing, that’s going to damage our country, damage our culture, damage our society, politically, damage our party, and destroy everything that’s been built, you have an obligation not to acquiesce to it as a coward, certainly not to join in with it, make excuses for it, but to confront it, whether it’s on the left or the right,” the pro-Trump right-wing pundit declared.
“You have an obligation, a moral obligation, to do just that. No, it’s not a waste of time, your time, or my time when I do it. It’s crucial to who we are as a society. It’s very crucial,” Levin continued. “You’ve got guys like Bannon. The guy pled guilty to a felony, ripping off little old ladies raising money for a wall that was never built. He’s telling us Trump’s gonna run for a third term.”
Levin, who also serves on the president’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, wrapped up his broadside against the MAGA podcaster by telling his audience not to trust Bannon.
“Well, there is the thing called the Constitution. Nobody gets to run for a third term. Nobody. And he won’t,” Levin concluded. “Bannon’s playing you.”
