White House slams door on Bannon despite apology
THE White House has rejected an apology from President Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, labelling his comments in an explosive new book about the Trump White House as “repugnant” and “grotesque”.
“When you go after somebody’s family in the matter which he did, two of the President’s children are serving this nation ... it is repugnant, it is grotesque and I challenge anybody to go and talk about somebody’s family and see if that person doesn’t come back and comes back hard,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said.
“I don’t believe there is any way back for Mr Bannon at this point.”
Bannon is a major voice in Michael Wolff’s behind-thescenes look at Mr Trump’s young presidency, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump
White House, which characterises the President as clueless and his administration as incompetent.
On Sunday, Bannon tried to bury the hatchet by expressing “regret” over his comments and referring to the President’s son Donald Trump Jr as a “patriot” and “good man”.
He also disputed quotes attributed to him in the book calling Donald Jr “treasonous” for meeting Russians at the Trump Tower during the campaign in June 2016.
Bannon said that comment was directed at Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who attended the meeting with Donald Jr and the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
Bannon also mocked the President’s daughter Ivanka and her husband – a couple he dubbed “Jarvanka”.
“It is very obvious Mr Bannon worked with Mr Wolff in this particular book,” Mr Gidley said, dismissing Bannon’s mea culpa.
Mr Gidley went on to call
Fire and Fury “false and fake” and reiterated the President’s earlier comments that Bannon was “not in it for the country but instead in it for himself”.
Mr Wolff, meanwhile, has shared a letter from his lawyers responding to Trump’s threats of legal action over the book.
“My clients do not intend to cease publication, no such retraction will occur, and no apology is warranted,” the letter reads.