Steve Bannon has made a lot of money off “Seinfeld.” And that’s not sitting too well with one of the show’s former writer-producers.
Bannon, the Breitbart News boss who’s soon to be a top adviser in the Trump White House, is a “raging anti-Semite” who has no business getting rich off a show based on “Jewish humor,” according to Peter Mehlman, one of “Seinfeld’s” best-known writer-producers.
He has made “all this money off a show that’s associated with Jewish humor,” Mehlman told The Guardian. “That’s pretty galling.”
Bannon has strongly denied he’s anti-Semitic. Breitbart has taken a pro-Israel stance on some issues, but the website is also a haven for the alt-right, some of whose leaders, such as “white identitarian” Richard B. Spencer, have espoused Nazi propaganda.
Mehlman isn’t inclined to take Bannon at his word. “If he’s not anti-Semitic what do you have to do to be considered anti-Semitic?” Mehlman asked. “Shoot Woody Allen?”
The one compliment he will give Bannon is for his business acumen. The future Trump adviser made his “Seinfeld” deal when he worked at Goldman Sachs in the early ’90s.
“He made a ton of money. It was a smart decision,” Mehlman said. “It doesn’t make him any less miserable as a human being.”