Trump’s top strategist Bannon removed from White House role
Adviser on shaky ground for weeks White House turmoil continues
Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, has been removed from his role at the White House.
Mr Trump accepted Mr Bannon’s resignation yesterday, ending a turbulent seven months for Mr Bannon, who is the latest to depart from the president’s administration.
White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday would be Mr Bannon’s last day on the job.
“We are grateful for his service and wish him the best,” she said in a statement confirming reports of Mr Bannon’s departure.
A combative and unorthodox Republican, Mr Bannon was a key adviser in Mr Trump’s general election campaign.
But he has been a contenreview tious presence in a White House divided by warring staff loyalties.
The former leader of conservative Breitbart News has pushed Mr Trump to follow through on his campaign promises and was the man behind many of his most controversial efforts, including Mr Trump’s travel ban and decision to pull out of the Paris Climate agreement.
But Mr Bannon repeatedly clashed with other top White House advisers and often ran afoul of the president himself.
Mr Bannon offered his resignation to Mr Trump on 7 August, according to one person close to the adviser.
The resignation was to go into effect a week later, on 14 August, which was the oneyear anniversary of when he officially joined Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.
It was then held back a few days after the violence in Charlottesville.
But Mr Bannon had been on shaky ground for weeks, and his standing appeared in jeopardy when Mr Trump’s new chief of staff, John Kelly, embarked on a personnel of West Wing staff. Mr Kelly had indicated to aides that significant changes could be coming, according to an official familiar with Mr Kelly’s plans but not authorised to speak publicly.
The president had also repeatedly diminished Mr Bannon’s role in his campaign in recent remarks and refused to express confidence during a news conference on Tuesday.
“He’s a good person. He actually gets very unfair press in that regard,” Mr Trump said.
“But we’ll see what hapnancy pens with Mr Bannon.” Mr Bannon is viewed in some circles as Mr Trump’s connection to his base and the protector of Mr Trump’s disruptive, conservative agenda.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow if Steve is gone because you have a Republican West Wing that’s filled with generals and Democrats,” said former campaign strategist Sam Nunberg, shortly before the news of Mr Bannon’s departure broke.
“It would feel like the twilight zone.”
House Democratic Leader Pelosi said the departure of White House adviser Steve Bannon was “welcome news”, but she has also called on President Donald Trump to fire additional staff.
Ms Pelosi said in a statement that Bannon’s departure did not disguise “where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance”.
Mr Trump has said “both sides” are to blame for the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacists and counterprotesters last weekend. One woman protesting the farright extremist groups died when a car drove into a crowd.
Ms Pelosi has said Mr Trump’s administration “must not only purge itself of the remaining white supremacists on staff, but abandon the bigoted ideology that clearly governs its decisions”. Democrats on the House’s taxwriting committee have sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, asking for his department to issue rules making it clear that hate groups don’t qualify for taxexempt status.