OXON HILL, Maryland (AP) — Steve Bannon was accused of making a Nazi salute as he concluded a speech at a conservative gathering where US President Donald Trump is slated to speak this weekend, but Bannon said Friday the gesture was merely a “wave.”

Bannon, who once served as Trump’s chief strategist and helped lead his 2016 Republican campaign, was onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington on Thursday evening when he extended his right arm in the air, his palm flat, after imploring the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — a reference to what Trump shouted after an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, during last year’s campaign.

The gesture drew immediate backlash due to its similarities with the right-arm salute linked in history to the Nazis and their allies.

“Steve Bannon’s long and disturbing history of stoking antisemitism and hate, threatening violence, and empowering extremists is well known and well documented by ADL and others,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote on X in response. “We are not surprised, but are concerned about the normalization of this behavior.”

Meanwhile, French far-right National Rally president Jordan Bardella said he had canceled his scheduled speech at CPAC on Friday in reaction to what he described as “a gesture referring to Nazi ideology.”

“While I was not present in the room, one of the speakers allowed himself, out of provocation, a gesture referring to Nazi ideology. As a consequence, I made the........

© The Times of Israel