Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” while commenting on Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon taking on a new role as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, the former chief executive officer of National Public Radio and author Ken Stern said Bannon has grown Breitbart into a “very large, effective news organization — media organization, political organization.”

Stern said, “What Trump is doing I think now is surrounding himself with people who have an instinctive and practiced knowledge about how to communicate with a certain part of the American public. Rogers Ailes deviously knows how. Steve Bannon knows how. They are good. They’re probably the best there are at advising on how to connect with his audience.”

He added, “This is about extending the Trump brand past November, but I don’t think it’s about necessarily launching a new media organization. The media organization that is the critique that Donald Trump just described has been around since Andrew Breitbart. That was a critique of Andrew Breitbart, and that is what Steve Bannon’s grown into a very large, effective news organization — media organization, political organization. That already exists. I think this is about extending the Trump brand into the populous brand so it’s not a transitional brand, like the Tea Party or the Dave Brats of the world. It is about, in my mind, what happens next after November in terms of the future of the Republican Party. can the alt-right become the right? And I think that’s the nature of the conversation.”

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