Bannon, Trump play down rift stemming from book comments
Steve Bannon pledged his continued support for Donald Trump after the president’s forceful denunciation of his former chief strategist finalized a political divorce that is forcing a reckoning within the Republican Party.
“Nothing will ever come between us and President Trump and his agenda,” Bannon told a caller on Breitbart radio Thursday morning, adding “we’re tight on this agenda as we’ve ever been.”
The rift between the former political partners was sparked by comments Bannon made in a forthcoming book about the Trump White House, calling meetings between Trump’s family members and Russian operatives “treasonous,” among other statements. Trump’s lawyer sent Bannon a cease-anddesist letter alleging he broke a confidentiality agreement by “making disparaging statements and in some cases outright defamatory statements” about Trump and his family to the book’s author.
Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday that Bannon’s more complimentary comments Wednesday evening and Thursday show his former aide “obviously changed his tune very quick.” He added he is no longer in regular touch with Bannon, saying “I don’t talk to him. That’s just a misnomer.”
Breaking from the strategist could help Trump reset his presidency with a symbolic division from the fringe elements of his base that dragged down his approval rating.
But the president has also lost a fall guy for devastating political miscalculations, like his decision to criticize “both sides” after last summer’s violence at a white supremacist demonstration in Virginia.
The book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” portrays the president as paranoid, erratic and often inept and his administration as riven by petty rivalries that often made accomplishing anything impossible.