Trump on attack before ‘tell-all’ book released
US President Donald Trump has attacked his former chief strategist ahead of the release of a book that paints the US president as juvenile and his White House as chaotic.
Mr Trump said that Steve Bannon “has nothing to do with me or my Presidency” and added: “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
The statement comes in response to a new book by writer Michael Wolff that offers a series of explosive revelations, including that Mr Trump never expected to win the 2016 presidential race.
Mr Trump seemed most angry at comments made by Mr Bannon in the book, Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House.
According to The Guardian, which obtained an early copy, Mr Bannon described a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.
An excerpt from the book published yesterday in New York magazine says Mr Trump believed his presidential nomination would boost his brand and deliver “untold opportunities”.
It says Mr Trump Jr told a friend that his father looked as if he had seen a ghost when it became clear he might win and described now-first lady Melania Trump as “in tears - and not of joy”.
The book was based on more than 200 interviews, including conversations with the president and senior staff.
President Trump’s statement reads: “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. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.
“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 30 years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base - he’s only in it for himself.
“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.”