Steve Bannon said Thursday that his controversial interview with a liberal magazine writer was a positive for the White House since it slowed down the media's momentum in covering President Donald Trump's remarks about the weekend's violence in Virginia.

In a freewheeling discussion with the American Prospect, the White House's chief strategist dished dirt on his internal disagreements with top economic advisers about an 'economic war' with China, contradicted Trump's position on the possibility of a military option to end a North Korean standoff and boasted that Democrats would lose elections if they continued to focus on racial politics.

Bannon told DailyMail.com that his remarks 'drew fire away from POTUS,' meaning President Trump, and that he successfully 'changed the [media] narrative' with a single phone call.

It's unclear if there has been any blowback in the West Wing from Bannon's unexpected on-the-record remarks to the magazine, which came in an unsolicited phone call on Wednesday.

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called a liberal magazine writer on Wednesday and dished to him about the North Korean standoff, an economic war in China and race politics

Now Bannon says his talk with the American Prospect , a far-left publication, was a net positive for the White House since it drew the media's attention away from President Donald Trump's controversial comments about the weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Virginia

But the episode did provide a temporary respite from days of unrelenting news coverage about Trump's evolving reaction to a neo-Nazi march in the town of Charlottesville.

Trump himself restarted the media's motor on Thursday morning by arguing on Twitter that statues honoring Confederate war heroes should not be torn down – seemingly agreeing with the premise for the Virginia protest that turned violent.

Separately, a White House aide told DailyMail.com that Bannon's interview would be seen internally as a positive in one respect – his dismissal of 'constant arguments about racism' as a prudent political strategy and his strong criticism of white nationalists as a 'collection of clowns.'

'The president doesn't like all the Democrats' focus on racism, and it's good that Steve mocked it as politically stupid,' the aide said. 'Plus, distance from actual racists is a good thing.'

Bannon had told American Prospect that Democrats' fixation on race politics instead of jobs and the economy would be their doom in 2020.

'The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day,' he boasted.

'If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.'

Bannon told DailyMail.com that he had successfully 'changed the narrative' with a single phone call

Bannon wants to acknowledge an existing all-out economic war between China and the United States. He is pictured with new interim White House Communications Director Hope Hicks at the West Wing earlier this year

In Wednesday's interview, Bannon sought to put a wall between himself and 'alt-right' conservatives who once found an ideological bedfellow in Breitbart News, the website he led until last year.

'Ethno-nationalism – it's losers,' he said. 'It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it.'

Bannon's conversation with writer Robert Kuttner seemed reminiscent of fired White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci's infamous job-ending phone call to a New Yorker reporter – without The Mooch's four-letter-words.

It reads like a conversation Bannon may have initially thought was off-the-record. The New York Times reported Thursday that people close to Bannon say he didn't think he would be quoted.

In the interview, Bannon directly contradicted President Donald Trump's stated policy on North Korea, a saber-rattling warning to rain 'fire and fury' down on dictator Kim Jong-Un if he didn't back off an aggressive missile test-launch posture.

'There's no military solution,' Bannon said Wednesday. 'Forget it.'

'Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.'

General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appeared to disagree on Wednesday, telling reporters in Beijing that while peace with Pyongyang is still a 'possibility,' there are 'credible, viable military options" for de-fanging communist dictator Kim Jong-Un.

'What's unimaginable to me is not a military option," Dunford said. 'What is unimaginable is allowing him to develop ballistic missiles with a nuclear warhead that can threaten the United States and continue to threaten the region.'

Dunford did, however, call the prospect of war with North Korea 'horrific.'

During the interview Bannon also denounced the 'alt-right' as a 'collection of clowns.' Pictured is a scene from the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday

Bannon also acknowledged in the magazine interview a long-running internal feud with National Economic Council chair Gary Cohn over whether to impose trade sanctions on China.

While Cohn and others argue for a softer line in the hope that Beijing will in return help keep North Korea in check, Bannon wants to acknowledge an existing all-out economic war between China and the United States.

'We're at economic war with China,' he said. 'It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it's gonna be them if we go down this path.'

'To me the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that,' Bannon added, warning of an 'inflection point' coming in the next decade beyond which the U.S. economy could be permanently sunk.

Cohn and some at the Treasury Department stand in his way.

'Oh, they're wetting themselves,' Bannon said, explaining that he has plans to marginalize the influence of cabinet agencies and bureaucrats who oppose him.

'We're still fighting. There's Treasury and Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying,' he observed.

'We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy.'