Bannon’s lost his mind – Trump
US leader denounces former aide over claims of meeting with Kremlin lawyer in new book
US President Donald Trump has unleashed a spectacular denunciation of one of his closest political allies, describing former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon as insane and irrelevant.
After the release of explosive excerpts from a new book in which Bannon reportedly described Trump’s eldest son’s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer as treasonous and unpatriotic, Trump wasted no time on Wednesday in firing back, issuing a response that was searing even by his combative standards.
“Steve Bannon 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 in a written statement.
Trump said Bannon – who engineered the New York real estate mogul’s link to the nationalist far right and helped create a proTrump media ecosystem – was only in it for himself.
US media said Charles Harder, a lawyer for Trump, had sent Bannon a cease-and-desist letter accusing him of violating a non-disclosure agreement by speaking to the author of the book.
Trump’s fury appeared to have been provoked by the publication of startling extracts from Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff.
Passages published by The Guardian and New York magazine quoted Bannon being highly critical of Trump’s son, Donald jnr, and daughter, Ivanka.
Bannon, who left the White House in August, is also quoted as saying that the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election will focus on money laundering.
The investigation by Mueller, a former FBI director, is looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to help get him elected – a charge the president has repeatedly and vehemently denied.
Donald jnr took a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016 after an intermediary promised material that would incriminate Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then campaign chairman Paul Manafort also attended the meeting at Trump Tower in New York.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers,” Bannon was quoted as saying in the book.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” he said.
Trump responded quickly and cuttingly to the reported comments by Bannon, a former investment banker and executive chairman of conservative outlet Breitbart News.
“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,” Trump said.
“Steve pretends to be at war with the media . . . 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.”
Wolff’s book – which he says is based on interviews with Trump, his senior aides and others – also mentions that Trump eats food from McDonald’s because he believes it to be safe from poison, and that his team did not believe he was capable of winning the election.
Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Sanders, hit back, telling a briefing: “This book is filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House.” – AFP