BANNON EXCERPTS prompt rebuke from Trump.

Former strategist ‘lost his mind’ after he was fired in August, president says

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump denounced his former top strategist Steve Bannon on Wednesday, distancing himself from the man considered the architect of Trump’s populist campaign.

“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said in a statement issued after the publication of excerpts of a new book in which Bannon criticizes the president and his family. “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.”

Bannon has lost the access to the president that he’s enjoyed since leaving the White House in August, one person familiar with the matter said.

Late Wednesday, lawyers for Trump sent a ceaseand-desist letter to Bannon, arguing that he has violated a nondisclosure agreement in speaking about his time on the campaign and in Trump’s most trusted inner circle.

Earlier, The Guardian published excerpts of a forthcoming book by author Michael Wolff in which Bannon predicts that White House special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, will “crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV” over the president’s son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016.

Bannon also called Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the lawyer, in which he expected to receive damaging information on Trump’s election opponent Hillary Clinton, “treasonous” and “unpatriotic,” according to The Guardian.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at a briefing that Trump was “furious, disgusted” by Bannon’s remarks about his son, calling the claims “outrageous” and “completely false.”

Bannon, reached by Bloomberg News, declined to comment on the remarks published by The Guardian. Two people close to him said he

wasn’t bothered by the president’s statement. They asked not to be identified.

Also Wednesday, New York Magazine published an article by Wolff, based on the book, that recounts a conversation between Bannon and former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes in which the two men debated whether Trump understood the importance of his election.

“‘Does he get it?’ asked Ailes suddenly, looking intently at Bannon. Did Trump get where history had put him?” Wolff wrote. “Bannon took a sip of water. ‘He gets it,’ he said, after hesitating for perhaps a beat too long. ‘Or he gets what he gets.”’

In his 265-word statement, Trump went on to criticize Bannon for some of his activities at the White House and afterward. He blamed Bannon for the loss of a Republican Senate seat in Alabama.

“Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country,” Trump said. “Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”

Bannon backed former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore over Trump’s preferred candidate, incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, in a primary election for the Alabama seat. Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones in a special election after several women accused Moore of sexual misconduct while they were teenagers.

Trump Jr. also declined to comment but retweeted a Bloomberg News reporter’s tweet about the outcome of the Alabama election with the comment: “Thanks Steve. Keep up the great work.”

“Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was,” the president said.

When Bannon left the White House in August, Trump complimented Bannon, saying he “would be a tough and smart new voice at” the website, Breitbart News. “Maybe even better than before. Fake News needs the competition!”

And Bannon boasted in September that he spoke with Trump by phone every two to three days, according to two people who attended.

After Trump issued his statement on Bannon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign staff tweeted an image of the Kentucky Republican sitting at his desk, grinning.

Bannon, a populist and nationalist who considers much of the Republican establishment corrupt, has said Senate Republicans should replace McConnell.