Steve Bannon pledges 20k ‘shock troops’ ready to go as he rants that ‘we control this country’

Donald Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon says he will have 20,000 “shock troops” ready to act as he ranted that “we control this country”.

Mr Bannon made the comments as he said he had rallied Republican supporters to “deconstruct” the state when the party wins the White House again.

“If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately,” Mr Bannon told NBC.

Mr Bannon spoke to the newly-formed Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, which was formed to help future GOP officials fill thousands fo federal jobs if they win the Oval Office again.

He told the new network that he wanted to see “pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies” at the start of the next GOP presidency.

And he doubled down on the claim on his Monday broadcast on Real America’s Voice.

“We’re winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now,” he said.

“Right? We control the country. We’ve got to start acting like it. And one way we’re going to act like it, we’re not going to have 4,000 (shock troops) ready to go, we’re going to have 20,000 ready to go and we’re going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department.”

Mr Bannon is one of four close advisers of Mr Trump to be subpoenaed to appear before the House select committee probing the 6 January insurrection.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump social media chief Dan Scavino and former Defense Department official and House Intelligence Committee aide Kash Patel have also been subpoenaed by the committee.

Mr Bannon was pardoned by Mr Trump as he faced multiple fraud counts amid allegations he stole money from the one-term president’s supporters who donated money to help build a private section of the border wall.