Then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon walks to a meeting in the office of Speaker Paul Ryan on Capitol Hill on March 23. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo Bannon: Hill Republicans said Obamacare would be replaced by Easter

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Republicans in Congress assured President Donald Trump that repealing and replacing Obamacare would be a quick process.

In an interview on Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes" on CBS, Bannon said congressional Republicans pledged to Trump they would be able to eliminate the Affordable Care Act by Easter — a timetable the Trump administration agreed to so it could move on to other matters.


"Paul Ryan and these guys come in and said, 'We've done this for seven years. We've voted on this 50 times. We understand this issue better than anybody. We know how to repeal and we know how to replace, and this is ours. That's what we're going to start with day one, and we will have something on your desk by Easter,' " said Bannon, explaining the proposal from Capitol Hill.

The expectation was that getting it done would clear the way for tax reform during the summer, followed by infrastructure.

"That was the deal," Bannon told Charlie Rose in the "60 Minutes" interview conducted Wednesday.

At a Republican retreat in January, Ryan described a timetable like the one Bannon discussed — and said he had shared the timetable with the newly inaugurated president. It certainly aligned with Trump's repeated promises during the campaign to quickly repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better.

Easter Sunday was April 16. Republicans were not able to accomplish the repeal-and-replace by that date; months later, the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land despite GOP efforts to gut it or eliminate it altogether. Ryan's Republicans did pass a bill, but it died in the Senate.

And, partly as a result of the time and energy expended on the Obamacare efforts, other Trump administration priorities have stalled as well — or not been addressed at all.

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In the interview, Bannon repeatedly spoke ill of the GOP establishment in Washington. "They do not want Donald Trump's populist, economic nationalist agenda to be implemented. It's very obvious," said Bannon, who returned to Breitbart News after leaving the White House.

Bannon also said the Republican leadership on the Hill needed to be "held accountable" or the president's agenda would not get done.

"They're not going to help you unless they're put on notice," Bannon said. "They're going to be held accountable if they do not support the president of the United States. Right now there's no accountability. They have totally — they do not support the president's program. It's an open secret on Capitol Hill. Everybody in this city knows it."

Bannon made it clear that Trump's campaign rhetoric about "draining the swamp" had annoyed McConnell, who claimed it made it hard for him to hire good people. McConnell, Bannon said, "did not want to go there. Wanted us to back off."

For his part, Bannon said he understood the swamp was not going to be easily drained.

"The swamp is 50 years in the making. Let's talk about the swamp. The swamp is a business model. It's a successful business model," he told Rose, adding a little later: "You're not going to drain it in two terms. This is going to take 10, 15, 20 years of relentlessly going after it."

Bits and pieces of the interview had been trickling out from CBS all week. Earlier reports indicated Bannon had accused D.C. Republicans of attempting to nullify Trump's election, said the Catholic Church needed "illegal aliens to fill the churches," and said White House economic adviser Gary Cohn should resign if he's not happy.