President Donald Trump doesn’t lie and hasn’t lied to the American people, said former White House Chief Strategist and Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon in an interview Sunday with ABC’s This Week.

Host Jon Karl played clips of the President promising never to lie before saying to Bannon point blank that this was a campaign promise the President “obviously broke. He has not always told the truth.”

“I don’t know that,” replied Bannon. “From what I’ve seen, he has.”

Karl asked him again, “you think the President has never lied?”

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Bannon said again. Then he joked “except when he called me ‘Sloppy Steve.’”

After some back and forth, Karl repeated again, “he says things that aren’t true all the time.’

“I don’t believe that,” said Bannon. “I think he speaks in a particular vernacular that connects to people in this country.”

Bannon goes on to make his point that the institutions of government are “rotten to the core” and must be investigated.

Bannon also said President Donald Trump doesn’t need to “justify” his policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern U.S. border because it is part of the administration’s “zero tolerance” approach on illegal immigration.

“We have a crisis on the southern border,” said Bannon.

“We ran on a policy — very simply — stop mass illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, get our sovereignty back to help our workers, and so he went to a zero-tolerance policy,” Bannon said. “It’s a crime to come across illegally and children get separated. I mean, I hate to say it, that’s the law and he’s enforcing the law.”

In May, the Trump administration announced a stricter border patrol policy aimed at preventing illegal immigration. Any migrant caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border will be prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice and could face jail time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said.

According to U.S. immigration enforcement procedure, any child of a parent detained for prosecution is placed with an adult sponsor or in a shelter.

“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said at a law enforcement conference in Arizona. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”

From April 19 to May 31, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults, according to Homeland Security statistics cited by The Associated Press.

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