Hard-right Bannon looks increasingly doomed
PRESIDENTIAL adviser Stephen Bannon appears to be deconstructing faster than the federal government he wants to dismantle.
Just months ago, the cantankerous aide who had helped guide President Trump to an unexpected victory was flying high, helping the new commander-in-chief make good on an array of controversial campaign promises.
But some 90 days into Trump’s presidency, Bannon is on the outs — having been formally demoted and publicly admonished by his boss. He could soon fall victim to the former reality TV star’s favorite phrase: “You’re fired.”
The former executive chairman of Breitbart.com helped to right, and alt-right, Trump’s teetering campaign when he was brought on last August to cement the Republican presidential candidate’s appeal among ultraconservatives and hone his nationalist message.
Tapped with the key role of “chief White House strategist” after Trump pulled off a historic win, Bannon helped his boss quickly make good on campaign promises as soon as he entered the White House. He made sure the boss followed through on vows to kick out millions of undocumented immigrants, suspend travel for people from Muslim-majority countries and deregulate practically everything.
But following the disastrous results or judicial blockages of many of those efforts, Bannon has discovered, the hard way, how difficult governing is — and many say he’s likely to pay for it with his job.
“Bannon has very much cast himself as a man in opposition: to a diversifying America, to corporatist Republicans, and to the administrative state itself. It is much more difficult, now inside of government, to pursue those agendas,” said David Birdsell, dean of the Public Affairs School at Baruch College. “Even a government being ‘deconstructed’ needs to have people work with one another to get the job done, and that’s inimical to the ethos that has apparently driven Bannon into increasingly heated conflict with those around him.”
Discord on Trump’s end was first reported when Time magazine ran a February cover story dubbing Bannon “The Great Manipulator” — prompting “President Bannon” memes on who was really calling the shots. “Saturday Night Live” has simultaneously satirized Bannon as the Grim Reaper and the actual President.
Bannon, 63, has feuded privately with Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner — who are kin and senior aides of Trump — as well as National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and national security aide Dina Powell — whose influence has grown stronger amid Bannon’s decline.
Last week, Trump dissed his chief strategist in a pair of highprofile interviews, saying Bannon was “a guy who works for me” who didn’t get “involved in my campaign until very late.”
The prior week, Trump had Bannon removed from the National Security Council’s principals committee — a reversal of one the most-criticized moves of the commander-in-chief’s monthsold presidency.
People who know Bannon told Politico they anticipated he would start settling scores through the media — without targeting Trump directly — if he’s booted from the White House.
“In Steve’s dream scenario, he would depart, things would fall apart even more so, and Trump would beg him to come back to fix it,” former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella told Politico. conflicts between the two
Russia’s support for “that kind of horrible regime . . . has to be drawn into question,” he said. “And so I think it’s time, though, now, to have those tough discussions with Russia.”
Last week, Trump himself sounded an unusually optimistic tone, saying things between Russia and the U.S. would “work out fine,” just a day after he said relations between the two nucleararmed superpowers were at “an all-time low.”
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Tillerson met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Kremlin officials in an attempt to defuse tensions, but he admitted afterward that the relationship remained “at a low point.”
Hours later, Trump — in a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington — echoed Tillerson’s comments, telling reporters that “we’re not getting along with Russia at all.”
Their assessment of the situation reflected the former Cold War foes’ inability to work together since Trump ordered air strikes on Syria in retaliation for Assad’s chemical attack that killed more than 85 of his own people. nations.