White House gives Bannon his walking papers
Bannon’s dismissal follows week of racial unrest after Charlottesville violence
President Trump’s controversial strategist, Steve Bannon, is banished in an effort to tame warring factions and bring stability to a White House at risk of caving under its self-destructive tendencies. Bannon returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman, the news site announced.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed his embattled chief strategist, Steve Bannon, an architect of his 2016 general election victory and the champion of his nationalist impulses, in a major White House shake-up that follows a week of racial unrest.
With Trump’s presidency floundering and his legislative agenda in shambles, administration officials said his empowered new chief of staff, John Kelly, moved to fire Bannon in an effort to tame warring factions and bring stability to a White House at risk of caving under its self-destructive tendencies.
Bannon returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman and chaired the Friday evening editorial meeting, the news site announced.
A combative populist on trade and immigration, Bannon was arguably Trump’s ideological id on the issues that propelled his candidacy. He served as a key liaison to the president’s conservative base and the custodian of his campaign promises.
Bannon had been a lightning rod for controversy since joining Trump’s campaign last summer, but he attracted scorn in recent days for encouraging and amplifying the president’s divisive remarks in the wake of last weekend’s deadly white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va.
Earlier this week, Trump declined to guarantee Bannon’s job when he was asked about it during a news conference.
“Well, we’ll see,” Trump said about his aide’s future. “I like Mr. Bannon. He’s a friend of mine. But Mr. Bannon came on very late — you know that. I went through 17 senators, governors, and I won all the primaries. Mr. Bannon came on very much later than that.”
Even as he failed to embrace Bannon fully, Trump also pushed back against moderates and liberals who saw the strategist as a racially divisive figure who has pushed Trump’s most nativist instincts.
“He is not a racist, I can tell you that. He’s a good person. He actually gets a very unfair press in that regard,” Trump said.
In that same free-wheeling exchange with reporters Tuesday at Trump Tower, Trump made plain that he was able to express racially divisive ideas on his own — claiming “both sides” were to blame for last weekend’s deadly violence in Charlottesville.
On Friday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement to reporters: “White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”
Some White House officials also said Friday that they expect some of Bannon’s allies inside the administration to exit with him.
Two such people are national security aide Sebastian Gorka and presidential assistant Julia Hahn, although both have portrayed themselves in recent talks with colleagues as Trump allies first and Bannon allies second.
Also, Sebastian Gorka, an ally of Bannon, also faces possible removal from his post as a counterterrorism aide to Trump, two people with knowledge of the situation said Friday.
Gorka, who previously worked with Bannon at Breitbart News, has appeared regularly on Fox News to speak on the Trump administration’s behalf.
And informal adviser Carl Icahn, who gave the White House guidance on its deregulation efforts, stepped down Friday.
Icahn, a billionaire investor, said in a letter to Trump that he is leaving to prevent “partisan bickering” about an unofficial role that Democrats suggested could benefit him financially.
Bannon is just the latest, if one of the most highprofile, of Trump insiders pushed out in an administration that has packed unprecedented amounts of turmoil into its first seven months.
A widely circulated photo of Trump and his top aides in the Oval Office in January, illustrates the turnover: Of six men in the photo, only Trump and Vice President Mike Pence remain. Gone are former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer, former national security adviser Mike Flynn and Bannon.
Bannon for months was locked in battle with senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and a coterie of like-minded senior aides, many with Wall Street ties.
Bannon has told associates in recent days that if he were to leave the White House, the conservative populist movement that lifted Trump in last year’s campaign would be at risk. One person close to him said the coalition would amount to “Democrats, bankers and hawks.”
Breitbart warned Friday that Bannon’s ouster “may turn out to be the beginning of the end for the Trump administration.”
The article by Joel B. Pollak, the website’s senior editor-at-large, described Bannon as the “conservative spine of the administration” who “personified the Trump agenda.”
The decision to fire Bannon was made by Kelly, the retired four-star Marine Corps general brought in late last month as White House chief of staff, officials said.