Trump, Bannon in war of words
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on former top adviser Steve Bannon on Wednesday, responding to a new book that portrays Trump as an undisciplined man-child who didn’t actually want to win the White House and quotes Bannon as calling his son Donald Jr.’s contact with a Russian lawyer “treasonous.”
Hitting back via a formal White House statement rather than a more-typical Twitter volley, Trump insisted Bannon had little to do with his victorious
presidential campaign and “has nothing to do with me or my Presidency.”
“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said. “Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.”
Trump continued: “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. 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.”
It was a blistering attack against the man who helped deliver the presidency to Trump. It was spurred by an unflattering new book by writer Michael Wolff that paints Trump as a leader who doesn’t understand the weight of the presidency and spends his evenings eating cheeseburgers in bed, watching television and talking on the phone to old friends.
By his reaction, Trump essentially excommunicated Bannon from his circle, ending for now a partnership of convenience that transformed U.S. politics while raising questions about the future of the nationalistpopulist movement they cultivated together.
White House aides were blindsided when early excerpts from “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” were published online by New York magazine and other media outlets ahead of next Tuesday’s publication date.
The release left Trump “furious” and “disgusted,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who complained that the book contains “outrageous” and “completely false claims against the president, his administration and his family.”
According to the Washington Post, lawyers for Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bannon, arguing he had violated a nondisclosure agreement in speaking about his time on the campaign and in Trump’s most trusted inner circle.
In a letter sent Wednesday night, Trump’s lawyers told Bannon his comments to author Wolff violate Bannon’s employment agreement that he signed with the Trump Organization in numerous ways and also likely defame the president. They ordered that he stop communicating either confidential and or disparaging information, and preserve all records in preparation for “imminent” legal action.
In the book, an advance copy of which was provided to The Associated Press, Bannon is quoted as describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr.; Jared Kushner, his brother-in-law; Paul Manafort, then the campaign chairman; and a Russian lawyer as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” The meeting has become a focus of federal and congressional investigators.
Bannon also said that the chance that Trump Jr. did not introduce the Russians to his father ‘‘is zero,’’ a supposition rather than an assertion but one that would contradict the president’s insistence that he knew nothing about the meeting at the time.
Bannon also told Wolff that investigations into potential collusion between Russia and Trump campaign officials would likely focus on money laundering.
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” Bannon was quoted as saying in one section.
Bannon also speaks critically of Trump’s daughter and White House adviser, Ivanka, calling her “dumb as a brick.”
The book also quotes Katie Walsh, formerly a deputy chief of staff, as saying that dealing with Trump was like dealing with the whims of a child.
Bannon, who was forced out of his White House job last summer, was not particularly bothered by the blowback, according to a person familiar with his thinking but not authorized to speak publicly. That person said Bannon, who runs the Breitbart News site, vowed Wednesday to continue his war on the Republican establishment and also predicted that, after a cooling-off period, he’d continue to speak with Trump, who likes to maintain contact with former advisers even after he fires or disparages them.
Trump, up until Wednesday, had been complimentary of Bannon, saying in October that the two “have a very good relationship” and had been friends for “a long time.”
New York magazine also published a lengthy adaptation of the book Wednesday, in which Wolff writes that Trump believed his presidential nomination would boost his brand and deliver “untold opportunities” — but that he never expected to win.
It says Trump Jr. told a friend that his father looked as if he’d seen a ghost when it became clear he might win. The younger Trump described Melania Trump as “in tears — and not of joy.”
Wolff was generally granted access to the White House with a “blue badge” instead of the traditional press badge, giving him wide access to the West Wing, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. One former White House official said Wolff was known to camp out for hours in the West Wing lobby after meetings, sitting on a sofa as he waited to talk to staffers passing by.
Wolff said the book was based on more than 200 interviews, including multiple conversations with the president and senior
staff members. But Sanders said Wolff “never actually sat down with the president” and spoke with him just once, briefly, by phone.
Cheering the breakup Wednesday were establishment Republicans who resent Bannon’s vows to wage war on incumbents in this year’s party primaries. Senate Republicans could barely contain their glee as they redistributed Trump’s statement with the note ‘‘in case you missed it’’ and a smiling face.
But the book presents Trump as ill-informed, lecherous, uninterested in briefings and presiding over a dysfunctional White House.
“He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored,” one unnamed White House aide said.
The book also asserts that Trump’s advisers and associates deride him in private, calling him an ‘‘idiot,’’ a ‘‘dope’’ or ‘‘dumb.”
Trump also can be insulting. He allegedly called former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates a “c---” when she refused to have the Justice Department uphold his travel ban, Wolff wrote.
There also is a reference to former House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in the book. Former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes supposedly encouraged Trump to pick a “son of a (expletive)” as his chief of staff and suggested Boehner.
Trump reportedly responded: “Who’s that?”