If Steve Bannon is correct (and I think he probably is), Michael Bloomberg has no intention of occupying the Oval Office; his real plan is far more devious and frightening.  Bloomberg is investing a small fraction of his fortune (Bannon says it is now $70 billion) in a "leveraged buyout" of the party, installing himself as the oligarch who calls the shots, including the selection of the candidate to win the presidency.

Forget the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the "Mike will get it done" ads saturating the airwaves and the Super Bowl ad touting gun control. According to Bannon, with the addled and corrupt Biden faltering, Bloomberg is fighting a holding action to prevent Bernie Sanders from capturing the nomination and thus taking over the party and converting it into an explicitly socialist party.  Win (unlikely) or lose, a Sanders candidacy would hand leadership of the party to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will be old enough for the presidency in the 2024 election.  Bannon notes that she has become the face of the Sanders campaign in Iowa while he was tied up in the impeachment trial.  She is an outright socialist intent on nationalizing the means of production and is therefore incompatible with Bloomberg's intent to run the party and the country by financing its political campaigns and operating expenses with outlays that don't strain his net worth but enable it to outspend the opposition.

YouTube screen grab.

Even more surprising is Bannon's scenario for Bloomberg's real plan.  In the second half of a long (almost 16 minutes) interview yesterday with Maria Bartiromo (the entire interview is embedded at the bottom of this post), Bannon stated (transcript via Real Clear Politics):

[T]he whole thing is rigged. And the Democrats, and particularly the Bernie Sanders supporters, should understand, you're playing in a rigged game.

Michael Bloomberg, who really now you're seeing an oligarch come in here, an oligarch that has committed $2 billion not to make himself president, $2 billion just to defeat Donald Trump.

And here's the thing.

BARTIROMO:  You don't think he wants to be president?

BANNON:  I think he — look, he knows he's not going to beat Donald Trump. He knows he's not going to win the nomination.

BARTIROMO:  You said he wants to be something else, not...

(CROSSTALK)

BANNON:  He's — he's basically doing a leveraged buyout of the Democratic Party, is what he's doing.

He's an LBO of the Democratic Party to control the Democratic Party to select who their candidate is going to be and use his capital, OK, and organization and technology to defeat Trump.

And that's why this is very dangerous. Now you are seeing an oligarch actually step over, has no chance at all to actually defeat Trump as a presidential candidate, do something that's much more dangerous to this republic.

That's why it's got to be followed. And it's serious. Remember, he can apply and capital like nobody else. He's worth 70 — over $70 billion now.

BARTIROMO:  Wow.

BANNON:  So, he can put that — he can put this to work, but...

BARTIROMO:  Money matters.

BANNON:  Here's — here's the point about the actions.

There's no personality out there that can beat Trump, and there's no set of policies. The policies are so radical. Trump's policies have blue-collar people outperforming white-collar finally as far as wage growth goes.

This is a striver's economy built by Donald Trump with his tax cuts and particularly his deregulation. He's now got the nation hitting on all cylinders in a troubled world economy, OK?

And this is what — this is why Bloomberg, Nancy — remember, he wouldn't never have been impeached if Bloomberg hadn't given Nancy Pelosi $100 million for her candidates.

BARTIROMO:  Right.

BANNON:  He won 21 of those 20.

He's taking — he's taking $100 million of advertising during the impeachment just to hammer Trump.

BARTIROMO:  So, the president tweeted last night: "Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democratic primary debate stage and to have the right to stand on boxes or a lift during the debates. This is something — sometimes done, but not fair."

Do you think that is why...

BANNON:  I love the way that President Trump can get personal very quickly.

BARTIROMO:  Do you think that's why they changed the rules, because he gave $100 million to the DNC last year, and he's pledging up to $2 billion?

BANNON:  Absolutely.

BARTIROMO:  That's why they changed the rules?

BANNON:  He's doing a leveraged buyout of the Democratic Party.

And the centrists, the Wall Street faction, the global corporatists, they understand Joe Biden. Joe Biden's performance in Iowa has been pathetic. And if you watch it closely, only two-thirds of the things are full. The little V.F. halls, they are full.

He's not on point. He can't bring the heat. They understand — they understand Mayor Pete, a small-town mayor from Indiana, is not going to be president. There's no centrist candidate.

That's why Biden — that's why Bloomberg money's coming in to get him more stature. Now, he's not going to be the nominee, I don't think. And there's no chance he can beat Trump.

So — but they...

BARTIROMO:  Are we going to see a brokered convention? Where is this going?

Hillary Clinton said...

BANNON:  Yes, Hillary Clinton.

BARTIROMO:  Hillary Clinton is not done talking about Bernie Sanders.

In a podcast, she says:  It's not my experience from 2016 that what — that he's going to unite the party. Nobody trusts him. You can't work with him.

I mean, he's still — she's still trashing Bernie Sanders.

BANNON:  Bloomberg money's and Clinton — in a brokered convention, the centrists will look to Clinton to save the — save the party, as I have said, when they don't have a centrist.

And the specter — remember, Bernie Sanders is AOC. Bernie Sanders is AOC's third term. It just happens to be the first. Bernie's surge has come since Bernie's been back in Washington on the impeachment trial.

It's AOC in Iowa. She has taken over that one taking over that wing of the Democratic Party, or the socialist party. They're really not Democrats. Remember, she said, in any other country in the world, Joe Biden and I wouldn't be in the same party.

So, she's taken over the socialists. She's become the mini rock star out there as they have gone around. That Bernie surge — and the Bernie and AOC people should understand something. When they get to the bottom of what happened on this poll, Bernie would have been up.

This was completely the Democratic apparatus and guys like Bloomberg to try to suppress what you're doing as left-wing populists.

If this is true, Bloomberg is carrying out an unprecedented head fake, using the cover provided by Trump Derangement Syndrome in order to convert our political system to a de facto plutocracy.  With very few exceptions, the Left, normally averse to wealthy people purchasing political power, is remaining silent because expelling President Trump from the Oval Office is its sole concern.  They raise no objections and even refuse to properly name the emerging system.  An oligarch is personally paying for the operations of a political party and buying political offices using advertising, paid field staff (Bloomberg already has 500 operatives on generous salary through November regardless of the fate of his candidacy), and outright ownership of the media to hand victory to his pawns.  Understand that Democrats including a potential President Hillary Clinton would be hopelessly dependent on him for future funding, as their independent fundraising capacities atrophy once he starts paying the bills.

Steve Bannon gave us an "emperor's new clothes" moment yesterday.  We are on the road to an outright sale of a political party to a plutocrat, and nobody else is willing to acknowledge it.

Here is his entire interview, followed by a transcript courtesy of Real Clear Politics.

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Meanwhile, the impeachment trial's final vote expected this coming Wednesday, and that guarantees President Trump will deliver his State of the Union address the night before the expected acquittal.
 
He will deliver the State of the Union Tuesday night.
 
Joining me right now is former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
 
And, Steve, it is always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for being here.
 
I want to get to the State of the Union and the impeachment trial in a moment.
 
First, you just heard Senator Lindsey Graham. Your reaction.
 
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST:  Donald Trump doesn't punt. And, particularly, he doesn't punt on first down.
 
I mean, this is just not acceptable. We just had the trial of the century, in which he is going to be acquitted. He's already been acquitted, but the formality will take place this week.
 
But he's focused on the crime of the century. The crime of the century is this kind of soft coup that is trying to blunt his presidency and remove him from office.
 
And what President Trump has said from the beginning, this is not about him. This is about the office of the presidency. Trump — Trump has been adamant this can never happen again to any president, whether it's a progressive Democrat or another populist nationalist. You cannot have this happen.
 
And what — I think what Senator Graham — we're not interested right now in hearing from the chief of staff of John Kerry. President — Lindsey Graham — and I have tremendous respect for him — he guaranteed at the Senate Judiciary Committee, we need to have the whistle-blower. We need to have the number two whistle-blower.
 
We need to have Adam Schiff as a fact witness. We need Hunter and Joe Biden. I think we need Brennan. We need all of them.
 
And here's the other thing we ought to do. President Trump ought to declassify all these reports. He ought to go back to Rosenstein's — the 40 subpoenas that the House, under Devin Nunes, forwarded to Rosenstein, he ought to get all those. He ought to get all of those subpoenas.
 
And all those people ought to be called to witness. This has to — we need an apparatus that's official to go about this to protect the office of the presidency going forward.
 
BARTIROMO:  Well, this is why I have been so adamant about this for three years.
 
It wasn't about President Trump. It was about fairness. It was about being a patriot, having the top leadership of the FBI and the CIA put their finger on the scale and try to take down candidate Trump and then President Trump.
 
That's why my audience wants accountability.
 
BANNON:  This happened in the '50s and '60s. This is why we had the Church Commission that looked into activities of the FBI and the CIA during the '50s and '60s.
 
This is why you had this whole new structure come up. We need to — this needs to be put on trial. It needs to be put on trial for the American people. President Trump is right. It is the crime of the century. And we can't cover it up. And we don't need to go to the House Foreign — it's not a foreign affairs issue.
 
It should be Senate Judiciary. And we have got to get Senate Judiciary Committee, because here's the reason. Nancy Pelosi and these people are not going to stop. The formal acquittal vote on Wednesday is just the curtain coming down on one act.
 
They're going to continue on. They're going to — they are going to try to subpoena John Bolton in the House. They want to get his notes.
 
And my point is, I don't...
 
BARTIROMO:  So, you don't think this is going to end anytime soon?
 
BANNON:  It's not going to end, because, listen, this ties back to what's happening in Iowa.
 
There's no heat on any of those candidates. There's no personalities out there that can beat the president. There's no — the policies are so radical. So they can't run on personalities. They don't have the policies. They must destroy Trump.
 
Nancy Pelosi from day one understands, to get back the White House, they must destroy Trump. And the way they're going to use it is to use these fake hearings.
 
This is not going to stop. They're going to subpoena more people. They're going to leak more information. And this is why I don't mind getting John Bolton as a witness.
 
Let's cross-examine him. Let's get in his notes and cross-examine him about that. Let's — let's get — I don't mind Mick Mulvaney or the OMB people. All the e-mails, let's get it up there in full daylight.
 
President Trump's best days on this is the first Saturday and the Monday when he came up. Jesse Watters, who watches this better than anybody, did an eight-minute open on his show last Saturday night. And he says:  I do this for a living. I learned so much.
 
When you had Sekulow.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  And you had Pam Bondi, and you had Cipollone, and Raskin, and all those people. And Atticus — and Atticus — Philbin came up. Those — laid out President Trump's case so perfectly.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  People said, hey, I understand it now.
 
This is what we need to do. And Lindsey Graham has committed, and I think he promised the American people he was going to do this.
 
BARTIROMO:  Well, look, I mean, the impeachment trial had the legal team make the case for the president.
 
But you wanted to see more. I mean, we have been hearing about collusion and all of these so-called bad things that the president did now for three years. So, the critics of the president keep on going and going and talking about it over and over again.
 
BANNON:  In the format that they agreed to for the trial, I think the lawyers did a fantastic job. And that's why you could see the air come out of the — out of the opposition party media as soon as it happened.
 
I would have rather they had gone for all 24 hours, wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, like the Democrats, take all the time you can.
 
When you lay it out and connect the dots and the interactions of these, you start to see the president's totally innocent. That's, I thought, quite powerful.
 
But, in that, it just — it dealt with a very narrow part of this case. That's why I'm saying, Trump's right. It is the crime of the century. There was attempted coup here.
 
That's what has to come out. And you shouldn't have to depend upon conservative media to do that, the media. Let's use the official apparatus of what the framers set up. Let's have the Senate Judiciary Committee.
 
(CROSSTALK)
 
BANNON:  And let's get — we need to bring the whistle-blower. We need this bring Adam Schiff as a fact witness. We need the second whistle-blower.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  We need the entire apparatus. We need their phone records, their text messages.
 
And we need to have them up there addressing the American people.
 
BARTIROMO:  For some reason, the critics of the president take all the oxygen out of the room, and they start focusing on what they want to focus on.
 
You said to me a couple of weeks ago on this program, the president shouldn't give the State of the Union if this is still going on.
 
Let's take a short break. I want to ask you about that.
 
We are with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. And we have got more when we come right back.
 
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO:  We're live coming to you from Miami Beach, the site of Super Bowl LIV.
 
And I'm back here with former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon. And we are talking about a lot to come.
 
You have got Iowa in the next couple of days. The president's going to do his State of the Union on Tuesday night.
 
Steve, you said to me, the president shouldn't give the State of the Union if he's not acquitted yet. Well, he's getting acquitted Wednesday. Are you OK with this?
 
BANNON:  I'm not OK with this.
 
Let's — let's take this past week, the split-screen. The president — you have — you have the president with Jared, has the — has the Israel — the new Israel peace plan, which radically changed...
 
BARTIROMO:  Middle East plan, yes.
 
BANNON:  Middle East, and totally changes the paradigm — it's a paradigm shift to how really to think about and get buy-in.
 
Ivanka comes in with the new $40 million for human trafficking that changes that whole scourge. Kellyanne has got the great announcement on opioids. Peter Navarro does the — does the counterfeiting.
 
The president signs USMCA, which makes us a geostrategic manufacturing alternative to China. And Brexit gets done. Brexit would have never gotten done without Donald Trump's victory. He had the back of Theresa May's government, Boris Johnson's government, Nigel Farage.
 
This week is a historic week on action. Split-screen, you have got these Democrats on a phony, forced constitutional crisis, talk, talk, talk all week.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  And so what the president and what they — they have boxed him into now is that they're going to have, what, 15 hours of senators talking before the final vote.
 
And we're going to have the State of the Union. And The New York Times has already gone to print with their headline:  Under cloud of uncertainty, president addresses the nation.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  No, let's have all the senators talk. Let's do everything they want to do. They could have worked Saturday, if they wanted to.
 
Let's have it all, and the president of the United States gets the last word. He addresses the nation, talks about all the actions he's taken, not the talk, and talks about where he's driving the country.
 
It's not — it's unacceptable that they're going to have a following day after his State of the Union. And you know what they're going to do?
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  They're going to hold their heavy hitters until that day, and they're going to sit there and rip. They're going to have a counternarrative to everything the president said.
 
If I was the president, I would say, hey, look, let's do it the following Tuesday. Let's do it on the night of New Hampshire.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  I will address the nation and see how they like that.
 
BARTIROMO:  But the average guy and gal out there knows. They're feeling what this president has put into place.
 
I was talking to one of the drivers the other day. He said to me:  My wife and I were just able to buy a house. We are so happy.
 
I mean, the average person out there understands how these policies are impacting them.
 
Take that to Iowa. Let's talk Iowa for a second. The DNC now changing the rules so that Michael Bloomberg could be on the debate stage. Bernie is leading in Iowa. What's your take?
 
BANNON:  Well, let's talk about what happened over the last 48 hours.
 
President Trump always says, it's a rigged game. The most important thing that comes out in the last week of Iowa is The Des Moines Register poll. They didn't publish. And the reason that it didn't publish is that it had some technical problem.
 
I guarantee you, when they get to the bottom of this, and that comes out in a couple days after the caucuses, Bernie would have been up a couple of points, OK? They're — they're trying to — they're trying to stiff Bernie, because the centrists there are in a panic mode.
 
And so the whole thing is rigged. And the Democrats, and particularly the Bernie Sanders supporters, should understand, you're playing in a rigged game.
 
Michael Bloomberg, who really now you're seeing an oligarch come in here, an oligarch that has committed $2 billion not to make himself president, $2 billion just to defeat Donald Trump.
 
And here's the thing.
 
BARTIROMO:  You don't think he wants to be president?
 
BANNON:  I think he — look, he knows he's not going to beat Donald Trump. He knows he's not going to win the nomination.
 
BARTIROMO:  You said he wants to be something else, not...
 
(CROSSTALK)
 
BANNON:  He's — he's basically doing a leveraged buyout of the Democratic Party, is what he's doing.
 
He's an LBO of the Democratic Party to control the Democratic Party to select who their candidate is going to be and use his capital, OK, and organization and technology to defeat Trump.
 
And that's why this is very dangerous. Now you are seeing an oligarch actually step over, has no chance at all to actually defeat Trump as a presidential candidate, do something that's much more dangerous to this republic.
 
That's why it's got to be followed. And it's serious. Remember, he can apply and capital like nobody else. He's worth 70 — over $70 billion now.
 
BARTIROMO:  Wow.
 
BANNON:  So, he can put that — he can put this to work, but...
 
BARTIROMO:  Money matters.
 
BANNON:  Here's — here's the point about the actions.
 
There's no personality out there that can beat Trump, and there's no set of policies. The policies are so radical. Trump's policies have blue-collar people outperforming white-collar finally as far as wage growth goes.
 
This is a striver's economy built by Donald Trump with his tax cuts and particularly his deregulation. He's now got the nation hitting on all cylinders in a troubled world economy, OK?
 
And this is what — this is why Bloomberg, Nancy — remember, he wouldn't never have been impeached if Bloomberg hadn't given Nancy Pelosi $100 million for her candidates.
 
BARTIROMO:  Right.
 
BANNON:  He won 21 of those 20.
 
He's taking — he's taking $100 million of advertising during the impeachment just to hammer Trump.
 
BARTIROMO:  So, the president tweeted last night: "Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democratic primary debate stage and to have the right to stand on boxes or a lift during the debates. This is something — sometimes done, but not fair."
 
Do you think that is why...
 
BANNON:  I love the way that President Trump can get personal very quickly.
 
BARTIROMO:  Do you think that's why they changed the rules, because he gave $100 million to the DNC last year, and he's pledging up to $2 billion?
 
BANNON:  Absolutely.
 
BARTIROMO:  That's why they changed the rules?
 
BANNON:  He's doing a leveraged buyout of the Democratic Party.
 
And the centrists, the Wall Street faction, the global corporatists, they understand Joe Biden. Joe Biden's performance in Iowa has been pathetic. And if you watch it closely, only two-thirds of the things are full. The little V.F. halls, they are full.
 
He's not on point. He can't bring the heat. They understand — they understand Mayor Pete, a small-town mayor from Indiana, is not going to be president. There's no centrist candidate.
 
That's why Biden — that's why Bloomberg money's coming in to get him more stature. Now, he's not going to be the nominee, I don't think. And there's no chance he can beat Trump.
 
So — but they...
 
BARTIROMO:  Are we going to see a brokered convention? Where is this going?
 
Hillary Clinton said...
 
BANNON:  Yes, Hillary Clinton.
 
BARTIROMO:  Hillary Clinton is not done talking about Bernie Sanders.
 
In a podcast, she says:  It's not my experience from 2016 that what — that he's going to unite the party. Nobody trusts him. You can't work with him.
 
I mean, he's still — she's still trashing Bernie Sanders.
 
BANNON:  Bloomberg money's and Clinton — in a brokered convention, the centrists will look to Clinton to save the — save the party, as I have said, when they don't have a centrist.
 
And the specter — remember, Bernie Sanders is AOC. Bernie Sanders is AOC's third term. It just happens to be the first. Bernie's surge has come since Bernie's been back in Washington on the impeachment trial.
 
It's AOC in Iowa. She has taken over that one taking over that wing of the Democratic Party, or the socialist party. They're really not Democrats. Remember, she said, in any other country in the world, Joe Biden and I wouldn't be in the same party.
 
So, she's taken over the socialists. She's become the mini rock star out there as they have gone around. That Bernie surge — and the Bernie and AOC people should understand something. When they get to the bottom of what happened on this poll, Bernie would have been up.
 
This was completely the Democratic apparatus and guys like Bloomberg to try to suppress what you're doing as left-wing populists.
 
BARTIROMO:  You have been working a lot on your wildly successful podcast "War Room" on coronavirus. I want to talk to you about the economy, because the president needs a strong economy going into the election.
 
We will take a break, and then we will talk about that. More with the former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon coming up in a moment.
 
Stay with us.
 
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
 
BARTIROMO:  Welcome back.
 
We have this FOX News Alert. Police in the U.K. say several people have been stabbed in what they're calling a terrorism-related incident.
 
It happened in the Streatham neighborhood in the South Side of London. Police say that they shot one man believed to be involved in the stabbings.
 
We will stay on top of this story. We will bring you more information as we get it.
 
Meanwhile, I am back here in Miami with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
 
A terrorist incident in London, Steve, is what we understand is happening.
 
Meanwhile, the president trying to secure the country, as we see more incidents around the coronavirus.
 
Joe Biden attacked the president for what the president is trying to do.
 
BANNON:  The president took really heroic and very smart action on Friday to try to make sure that we're — and helping the Chinese people, because this is number one.
 
The Chinese people need assistance here, OK? And the Chinese government needs assistance. The Chinese people are the victims of this.
 
This is a horrific pandemic that's broken out in Central China. They're trying to quarantine essentially anywhere from 70 to 90 million people. That has never happened in human history before. They need all the assistance they can get.
 
What President Trump is trying to do, and other nations around the world, is make sure that this pandemic doesn't spread to other countries. And he took heroic and smart action to protect the American people, but also to help the Chinese.
 
Biden today — and this shows you how, I think, he's lost a step and is not really on top of things, doesn't understand the complexity here. This is a very complex situation.
 
He called the president — fell into hysteria, was xenophobic, nativist.
 
And he's absolutely dead wrong. What the president of the United States did is what the head of this virus fighter in Hong Kong, Dr. Gabriel Leung, who's the top virus fighter, he recommended these actions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
 
BARTIROMO:  Yes.
 
BANNON:  And the president took them on Friday.
 
The president also showed his team. He has a very strong team of FEMA, throughout the government. They were up there on stage the other day.
 
So he's — they're — we're attacking this wholeheartedly. He actually became a war president on Friday on the war against this virus.
 
BARTIROMO:  But this is hitting us nonetheless.
 
You have got company after company shutting down businesses in and around China. Obviously, Wuhan is totally closed down.
 
Is this going to impact the global economy? Look at this major sell-off we had in the Dow Jones industrial average on Friday, because people are worried that the first quarter, write it off in China. Write off their first quarter.
 
That's going to hit the U.S., isn't it?
 
BANNON:  Listen, this is the downside of globalization. This is why President Trump's been talking about economic nationalism.
 
This is why people today — and Bank of America had this analysis of multinational corporations looking at localism, bringing jobs back to their own home thing.
 
The — the downside of globalization, globalization has just-in-time inventory. The issue is, this interlocking distribution chain you have also has certain security risks to it, not just national security.
 
You have health security. And that's what we're seeing. And so China, right now, the major industrial center of China outside of Southern China is in complete lockdown, and so — quarantined. They have extended the Golden Week for another week.
 
But the schools in Hong Kong...
 
BARTIROMO:  But is this going to hit the U.S. economy right before the — for the election?
 
BANNON:  Here's what I think...
 
BARTIROMO:  What can the president do about the economy here?
 
BANNON:  Here's what I think people ought to start focusing right now, is the third quarter.
 
In China, if they don't open these factories, if they don't start — drop these quarantines in the next couple weeks, you're going to have real impact.
 
BARTIROMO:  All right, Steve, it is great to have you, as always.