Steve Bannon: Trump Presidency Is 'Over'
Stephen Bannon said in his first public remarks since his ouster from White House role as chief strategist that he will be “going to war” for President Donald Trump, warning that he will continue to press the populist cause against the political and corporate establishment.
“If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents -- on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,” Bannon said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg News hours after his departure was announced by the administration.
Bannon left the White House Friday, ending a controversial tenure as the administration is engulfed in a storm over the president’s remarks on violence in Virginia. Bannon’s departure was agreed on mutually with new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.
Later, in an even more contentious interview with the conservativeWeekly Standard, Bannon declared that the Trump presidency was "over."
“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” he said. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over."
Bannon said President Trump's administration would "be much more conventional" in the wake of his departure.
He also said his absence from the White House will likely make it “much harder” for Trump to pave a way forward on issues like “economic nationalism and immigration.”
Republicans would "moderate" Trump, Bannon predicted. The GOP just hasn't backed Trump well, Bannon said.
“Now, it’s gonna be Trump,” he told the Standard. “I just think his ability to get anything done – particularly the bigger things, like the wall, the bigger, broader things that we fought for, it’s just gonna be that much harder.”
Bannon maintained that he was excited to be returning to Breitbart and lead the opposition from there.
"Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons," he said. "Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a f-cking machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.”
His exit caps a tumultuous four weeks in which a slew of senior officials have announced their departures, including the former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer and former communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was hired and fired within the space of 11 days.
The benchmark S&P 500 Index rallied as much as 0.4 percent, rebounding from its second-biggest drop of 2017, touching its daily high point after the New York Times confirmed Bannon’s departure. But stocks soon receded and the index ended down for the day. Investors interpreted his departure as removing a powerful advocate for a protectionist agenda and direct confrontation with China over trade.
Bannon, 63, the chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign and an architect of his election victory, was the leading champion of conservative populism within the administration. The former chairman of Breitbart News, Bannon served as a link to the so-called “alt-right” movement attuned to the attitudes of the most conservative elements of the president’s base.
“Steve played an integral part in the president’s journey to the White House," said former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg. "Steve went into the White House and didn’t betray his values, worked every day to advance the agenda that the president was elected on. Trump’s voters may get upset that America’s not being made great again. We’ll find out.”
Gorka Endangered
Sebastian Gorka, a Bannon ally who previously worked with him at Breitbart News, also may face removal from his post as a counter-terrorism aide to the president, said two people with knowledge of the situation.
The possible dismissal of Gorka suggests that Kelly is looking to root out Bannon allies and other officials prone to igniting public firestorms. Last week, Gorka told the BBC it was “simply nonsensical” for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss military matters related to recent provocations by North Korea. He subsequently accused the media of distorting his remarks.
Bannon had advocated that the president delve into racial issues and applauded Trump’s widely criticized handling of the Charlottesville situation. The president appeared to press forward with that strategy with a series of tweets Thursday morning decrying the removal of Confederate statues.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called Bannon’s ouster “welcome news, but it doesn’t disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance.”
“Personnel changes are worthless so long as President Trump continues to advance policies that disgrace our cherished American values,” she added.
A person close to Bannon portrayed his departure as unrelated to the backlash against Trump’s comments this week that appeared to confer legitimacy on white supremacists following the violence in Virginia. The person said Bannon had turned in his resignation on Aug. 7 to take effect on Aug. 14. The announcement was delayed following last weekend’s melees in Charlottesville to put distance between those events and his exit, the person said.
Bannon, whose relationship with Trump was forged through campaign battles, has been one of the president’s closest advisers, skilled at infighting and cultivating the media. His departure strengthens Kelly, who has sought to better organize a West Wing known for chaos and disorder.
Bolsters Cohn
The move also will bolster Bannon’s rivals within the administration, including National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and top economic aide Gary Cohn, with whom Bannon frequently clashed over policy. During an interview Sunday with NBC News, McMaster pointedly and repeatedly refused to say whether he could effectively work with Bannon going forward.
The American Prospect, a progressive magazine, on Wednesday published an interview with Bannon in which the president’s chief strategist discussed his efforts to undermine fellow Trump aides and seemed to undercut the president on key foreign policy issues.
Bannon told the magazine political opponents at the State Department and Pentagon were “wetting themselves” over his plans to root out employees he disagreed with over policy. And despite the president’s threats of a swift military response to provocations from North Korea, Bannon conceded “there’s no military solution here” that wouldn’t result in millions of deaths.
Even before the interview, the president signaled Bannon’s fate could be in jeopardy. Asked about Bannon’s job security during a freewheeling press conference Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, the president was noncommittal. He said Bannon was “not a racist” and was treated unfairly by the press, but contended he “came on very late” to his presidential campaign.
There were also signals in recent days that friends of the president were souring on Bannon.
Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media and a frequent confidant of the president, said earlier this week that Trump was “not getting good advice from the people that are around him” in the aftermath of the president’s comments on the violence in Charlottesville.
“Whoever is advising him that now is the time to argue in favor of confederate monuments, is not giving him good advice,” Ruddy said in an interview before Bannon’s ouster.
Trump had been considering removing Bannon even in the months before the Charlottesville controversy, frustrated with perceptions that his adviser was the one pulling the strings at the White House. He was angered by a Saturday Night Live sketch that depicted Bannon as the grim reaper, sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office while Trump was given a child’s table. A Time magazine cover labeling Bannon “The Great Manipulator” also hurt his standing, as did his portrayal as a key to the president’s electoral success in a recent book by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Joshua Green.
The president was also frustrated by perceptions that his senior aide was behind leaks to the media. Scaramucci, who was fired last month after less than two weeks on the job, said repeatedly he believed Bannon was a leaker.
New Risks
But moving Bannon outside the White House raises new risks. Even if he continues to support the president, he may become aggressive in attacking the administration’s more traditional Republican players and policies. He has ample access to funding through his close relationships with conservative billionaire Bob Mercer and other major Republican donors.
Some in the White House disagreed with the decision to oust Bannon, and argued that the move weakened the president’s ability to translate his ideas into policy.
Bannon was the administration’s most effective advocate for delivering on the Trump campaign agenda, said one official who requested anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. His removal also will isolate Stephen Miller, the president’s senior adviser who’s best known for his efforts to curtail immigration, the person argued, and leave Trump more vulnerable than ever to the so-called “globalists” on his team.
The official also discounted the notion that Bannon’s removal was a victory for liberals who had long advocated for his dismissal, arguing that his power will only increase once he leaves.
Bannon may once again devote his attention to media interests, Ruddy said in an interview on Friday after the departure was announced.
“Steve is a media guy,” Ruddy said. “He thrives in it and has done very well in it. I assume he’ll be back in some role at Breitbart and using that as a platform for radio or television.”
“Steve is a media guy,” Ruddy said. “He thrives in it and has done very well in it. I assume he’ll be back in some role at Breitbart and using that as a platform for radio or television.”
Kurt Bardella, a Republican communications specialist who worked for Bannon at Breitbart but later denounced him, echoed the view, predicting the strategist would "feel liberated" by his departure.
"Now, he will be able to operate openly and freely to inflict as much damage as he possibly can on the ‘globalists’ that remain in the Trump Administration," Bardella said.
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