Still ‘the president’s wingman’
Bannon remains a confidant of Trump despite White House ouster months ago
WASHINGTON — In the two months since Stephen Bannon was shunted from the White House and returned to the helm of Breitbart News, the former chief strategist has declared “a season of war” on establishment Republicans and even worked to help a Senate candidate opposed by President Donald Trump.
Yet Bannon and Trump are anything but estranged. Instead, they have remained in frequent contact, chatting as often as several times a week, according to multiple associates of both of them.
Trump usually initiates the talks because incoming calls now are routed through chief of staff John Kelly and his disciplinarians. The conversations are dictated by the whims of the president, who dials his former chief strategist when something he watches or hears piques his interest.
When Trump phones, Bannon answers with a deferential “sir,” a nod to respect from a man who shuns hierarchies. They chew over politics, float ideas and catch up on gossip. They also each ask after the other to shared confidants and friends, not unlike teenagers checking to make sure the other is not upset or disapproving.
In one of his many private chats with Fox News personality Sean Hannity, Trump recently asked, “Is Steve still with me?” according to two people familiar with the conversation.
Bannon’s bond with Trump — forged in their shared nativist instincts, us-against-them mindsets and disruptive impulses — by all accounts remains strong, even as their political agendas show signs of diverging heading into the 2018 midterm elections.
Trump and Bannon’s evolving partnership — described by nine aides, friends and confidants, many of whom insisted on anonymity to offer a more candid portrait — is nuanced, combining tension with affection and, for now at least, is mutually beneficial.
Bannon tells confidants he sees himself as “the president’s wingman,” tending to his base and taking on his enemies. Trump still frequently consults him, and Bannon believes he is executing the president’s wishes.
Since leaving the White House in mid-August, almost exactly one year after he joined Trump’s campaign, Bannon has appeared reenergized and invigorated with a singular focus, friends say. He is trying to build the equivalent of his own political party, one that aims to explode the Republican establishment.
In a provocative speech last weekend to the Values Voter Summit, Bannon declared “a season of war against the GOP establishment.”
Bannon has been crisscrossing the country, meeting with donors and recruiting primary challengers to Republican senators.
The Alabama Senate primary last month posed the biggest stressor to date for Trump and Bannon’s post-White House relationship. Bannon went all in for Roy Moore, a polarizing former judge and evangelical whose rhetoric and policy positions are considered by many to be racist and homophobic, while Trump supported Sen. Luther Strange, who had been tapped to fill a vacant seat and was favored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In the closing days of the race, Trump and Bannon staged dueling rallies in the state — associates described them as “friendly adversaries” — but despite enthusiasm for the president among Alabama Republicans, Moore won.
The outcome rattled Trump, who for the first time watched as his base bucked him. But he did not fault Bannon. Instead, aides said, he blamed his own advisers for pushing him to be involved in a race he had always felt skeptical about.