OVERSIGHT _028481 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY MARCH 10,3018 nment Investigat Visit Grat In Poison Of Ex-Sp By ELLEN Y LONDON - Bri investgatin thep At. 3Y won in the cathed erint suits, th around the police quested mill! ects from died in 201 forensic Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist for President Trump, took the stage in Zurich on Tuesdav for an event hosted by a richt-wing Swiss magazine. ADRIAN BRETSCHER/GETTY IMACI ter, Yu Uncot on a cent towI the ne ou Bannon Takes On Europe, With Populist Toolbox in Hand By JASON HOROWITZ MILAN - Stephen K. Bannon leaned back in an armchair oppo- But it is Italy, where populist populist websites in the image of site a copy of a painting by an Ital- Breitbart News, either owned by preneur does it, he said, "there seemed propelled by automated ian old master and explained his him or others, will spread those are going to be these populist na- modest efforts to build a vast net- ideas, under his guidance. tionalist news sites that pop up in bots rather than real supporters. the next year on line. That will "You can't just have just all hu- work of European populists to de- As a final component, he wants only take these things to the next mans, I'm sure they have some molish the Continent's political es- to train an army of populist foot level." bots," Mr. Bannon said, unboth soldiers in the language and tools of social media. With Europe more aggressively ered. "The thing is that they ar ackling the migration issue Mr generating enthusiasm on she "All I'm trying to be," he said, "is Mr. Bannon said that a common strings." Bannon was aiming to move the He said he hoped the two message he had received from future battle of populism to other populists throughout Europe was ties would eventually join is terrains. a desire to establish a media outlet He said that the reason it was so tion as the talent try toe for their views. "They see what Breitbart did important to get populist national- government after an incor ist governments in place was to and they want it in their own lan- prepare wan an axis of ancient eleBut he spoke also alr and Breitbart News, the alt-right a political force, for the sharp criti- cisms of President Trump's chil- dren attributed to him in a book. "He's lost his mind," Mr. Trump But now Mr. Bannon, the archi- tect of Mr. Trump's populist cam- paign message dent's former chief strategist, has with an international On Saturday, he is set to head- annual conference France's far-right National Front in the northern city of Lille, where le will be introduced by its leader, Marine Le Pen. People with nowledge of Mr. Bannon's itiner- y suggested that he might meet ter in the weekend with the Hun- rian prime minister, Viktor Or- 2, but Mr. Bannon declined to whether or not he would, only ing that he admired Mr. Orban "hero" and "the most signifi- guy on the scene right now." Zurich, Mr. Bannon says, he a "fascinating" meeting on lay with leaders of Ger- s far-right Alternative for did not. A spokesman for the anti- ment, which won a third of Italian votes, did not return a request for Aside from the occasional cof- fee at Campo de' Fiori or photo-op at Piazza Navona, Mr. Bannon has been holed up in hotel rooms, ta- king meeting after meeting. In Rome, he stayed at the luxu- rious Rafael hotel, where Bettino Craxi, the face of Italy's corrupt establishment and mentor to Sil- vio Berlusconi, was pelted with coins in 1993 by an angry mob as he departed the political scene. In Milan, he sat in a room at the grand Principe di Savoia, opposite a copy of Titian's portrait of the Duke of Mantua, a master of in- trigue in Renaissance Italy and a longtime sufferer of syphilis, sur- rounded by red damask wallpa- per. Jams were on a room service cart, and a copy of a book titled "Headlines All My Life" was on quage " ers clash slipped into tense pathetically about Mat Turkish. Persian and Chinese civi- the now vanquished It when talking about the website lizations from which he recently separated. the future "That's the key. Right now my have to buy into it." bean centerleft sites are in English, they want one He is also increasingly inter- Mr. Renzi, he sai ested in motivating people to fight ject lesson to eve media conglomerates like Face- tician in Europe," : A new mission: To train Europe's budding populists to do what he did book that monetize their data. one. And he has become fascinated The former prin with crypto currencies and how said, had tried to they can help populist move- sels's rules when it: ments, the subject of a speech he gration crisis, and i gave in Zurich this week. ropean Union allow In preparation for the speech, organized by Die Weltwoche, a ing Italy to take ti conservative Swiss magazine, Mr. Bannon said he visited the town of "They hung hin included Alice Weidel and von Storch, who recently to a New Year's Eve public announcement by the police that went out in anguages, including Ara- "Are they seek- pease the barbaric, Mus- thordes of men?" In both cities, he wore a blue and white striped button down over a polo shirt. In Rome the polo was orange. In Milan it was blue. He sipped sparkling water and described a grand vision for a global populist future. In the United States, Mr. Ban- non said, he is working on a project to create a think tank to "weaponize" populist economic and social ideas. He sees that work spreading to Europe, where a proliferation of in their own language," he said, calling that "phase two." He could be forgiven the slip, as the site still seems to be in his thrall. ("Stephen K. Bannon took Zurich by storm Tuesday, ad- dressing a sell-out crowd," began Breitbart's article on the speech.) But Mr. Bannon, who said he was paying for the trip, said he was weighing whether to buy a name-brand outlet, like News- week or United Press Interna- tional, or to start a new one, or to connect entrepreneurs with capi- tal or invest himself. He imagined a scoop-driven and high-metabolism outlet "like Axios," he said, referring to the buzzy Washington newsletter, but with a populist bent that would de- vour Europe's sleepy legacy pa- Zug, known as Crypto Valley for its bustling cryptocurrency indus- try. He was impressed. "If Brussels and the European Francis, who ha: Central Bank is worried about Ita- ly going to the lira, their concerns should be that all these communi- ties and states are going to pope," said Mr.] who has nonetl crypto," he said in Milan. In the meantime, he said, he ad- mires Italy's populist parties for already being on the technological «Whether I do it or a local entre- The Five Star Movement, a web-based party that preaches di- rect, online democracy, and the League, the hard-right, formerly northern-based party, both dominated social me- dia during the campaign. Often, their critics say, they did it with spurious and inflammatory fake news about migrants and crime. Many of those messages