Watch: Osama bin Laden’s Niece Defends ‘Thorn’ of ‘Ultra MAGA Movement’ on Steve Bannon’s Show
18:43 GMT 23.05.2022 (Updated: 13:29 GMT 06.08.2022)
Subscribe
The niece of Al-Qaeda* founder and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden has praised the grouping of ultra-right-wing Republicans calling themselves “Ultra-MAGA” movement, saying it is part of a “silent majority” that is standing up to global “elites.”
On Monday, Noor bin Laden made her second appearance on the “War Room: Pandemic” podcast, hosted by far-right ideologue and former senior adviser to then-US President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon.
When asked by Bannon about what she thought global elites would do in response to what he called an “uprising” by Trump’s supporters, the Switzerland-based bin Laden suggested they would simply ignore them and “power through, they’re like a bulldozer.”
Steve Bannon brought on Osama bin Laden's niece Noor to promote the "Ultra MAGA movement" today.
— David Edwards (@DavidEdwards) May 23, 2022
"We are the silent majority," she said. "We have reached a critical mass where enough of us are completely awake to what they are trying to do." pic.twitter.com/XG9TZ06V44
"And this is why President Trump was such a huge thorn and is such a huge thorn and the entire Ultra MAGA movement is such a huge thorn to them," bin Laden said. "And I think, judging by the intensification of the attack and the blatant, blatant farcical steal of the 2020 election and all the different efforts."
"You say we are the silent majority," she added. "We have reached a critical mass where enough of us are completely awake to what they are trying to do and we will not let this happen and I think they are worried."
In her first appearance last month, the 35-year-old defended the participants in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol Building, calling them “political prisoners,” and praised those lawmakers who have defended them.
“This is traitor-level, in my opinion, that those who are supposed to represent the citizens are failing,” bin Laden told Bannon on April 7.
“We can be really grateful for representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, [Matt] Gaetz, Sen. Ron Johnson … [they are] among the handful defending and standing up and speaking about these political prisoners,” she added.
That attack, carried out by Trump supporters following a “Stop the Steal” rally hosted by Trump outside the White House, aimed to block Congress’ certification of the results of the 2020 election. According to Trump and his supporters, Trump’s rightful victory was “stolen” by Democrats and supporters of now-US President Joe Biden, who he claimed used fraudulent means to win.
The attackers penetrated the legislature and temporarily dispersed Congress, but failed at capturing the election results or any lawmakers, as some had intended. US police and soldiers soon drove them from the building, but not before the deaths of five people, including a rioter who was shot to death by a US Capitol Police officer outside the House chamber.
Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
© AP Photo / Jose Luis Magana
Biden was inaugurated several weeks later under unprecedented heavy guard, as the capital city was garrisoned with more than 20,000 US troops. Trump was impeached on accusations of provoking the insurrection but was acquitted by a minority of US Senators in a trial after he left office that many saw as a political stunt.
The Rise of ‘Ultra-MAGA’
However, Biden has continued to struggle with Trump’s movement, and the former president has seemingly demonstrated a “kingmaker” ability after candidates he backed triumphed in Ohio’s primary elections last week. Earlier this month, Biden denounced a Republican-backed anti-inflation plan as something typical of Trump’s politics, inadvertently coining the term they have since adopted for themselves: “ultra-MAGA,” referring to Trump’s campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.”
“I am ultra MAGA, and I’m proud of it,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third most powerful GOP member in the House, tweeted on May 11 after a reporter noted that’s what she was being called.
Despite the Ohio success, Axios noted that in other states, moderate Republicans have enjoyed success over their Trump-backed competitors and that some Democratic strategists are expecting that if Trump-backed candidates win their party’s nomination for November, it will push some Republican voters into backing Democrats. That has led to contradictory strategies, with some Democrats voting for moderate Republicans in the primaries and others trying to boost the “Ultra-MAGA” candidates out of a belief they’ll be easier to defeat in November.
Similarly, progressive nonprofit MoveOn has opened a “US-vs-MAGA” campaign, promoting the idea that the election is between Biden-backed and Trump-backed candidates and focusing its efforts on defeating “Ultra-MAGA” candidates in more than a dozen state and federal races.
Republican Senate candidate JD Vance, left, is hugs his wife Usha Vance, as he prepares to speak to supporters during an election night watch party, Tuesday, May 3, 2022, in Cincinnati.
© AP Photo / Aaron Doster
That strategy can be dangerous, however, as it’s exactly what gave birth to Trump’s presidency in 2016.
In an article published the day before the November 8, 2016, election that Trump won, Politico quoted memos sent between staffers on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which were leaked to WikiLeaks by an unknown figure and released the previous summer. The memos revealed an attempt to promote Trump and other “Pied Piper candidates” as the real GOP leaders.
“The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” one April 2015 memo says, noting that “Pied Piper” candidates include Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“How do we prevent [Florida Governor Jeb] Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?" another leaked memo from a Clinton campaign meeting a few weeks later read.
On Friday, Clinton’s then-campaign manager, Robert Mook, testified in court that Clinton personally gave the order in late October 2016 to feed the press unconfirmed and since-unproven reports about a connection between Trump and a Russian bank in an attempt to discredit him right before the election. When Trump won, the myth that he had enjoyed secretive Kremlin support morphed into the Russiagate conspiracy theory that Russian meddling had engineered his win. In the six years since, one unofficial Democratic line of attack has tried to cast all Republicans as puppets of Russian President Vladimir Putin, giving them nicknames like “Moscow Mitch” and “Kremlin Cruz.”
*Al-Qaeda: a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other nations
