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Bannon fired from White House, but vows to wage ‘war for Trump’
EXIT, STAGE alt-right.
Embattled White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon ended his tumultuous tenure with the Trump administration on Friday — and immediately returned to his old anti-establishment stomping grounds.
The grizzled economic nationalist, who helped steer President Trump into the Oval Office, promptly restored himself at the helm of the ultraconservative Breitbart News hours after his exit — and promised to wage war against his opponents.
“I feel jacked up,” Bannon told the Weekly Standard. “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘It’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition.”
Bannon’s departure from the West Wing was long rumored and comes amid numerous reports that his feuding with fellow White House staffers became too much for a weary Trump.
His exit caps a whirlwind four weeks in which three other top level officials have left the Trump administration.
A person close to Bannon said he submitted his resignation on Aug. 7, but the announcement was pushed back because of last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Va.
But the White House made clear he was shoved out by Trump and his new chief of staff.
“White House Chief of Staff John 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,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
The 63-year-old strategist made clear on Friday that he feels Washington won’t be the same without him.
“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon told the Weekly Standard. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”
Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker who worked in TV before joining Breitbart, was brought on to bolster the Trump campaign last August .
He became a constant presence in Trump’s inner circle and his fingerprints were seen on everything from policy decisions and attacks against the media to the President’s inaugural address decrying “American carnage.”
Trump appointed Bannon as his chief strategist after reaching the White House and named him to his National Security Council.
His perceived influence over Trump landed him on the cover of Time magazine, with the title “The Great Manipulator,” and led to “Saturday Night Live” mocking him as a harbinger of death who ran the White House. The depiction reportedly left Trump furious.
Bannon oversaw Trump’s two attempted travel bans on several Muslim-majority countries, which were tied up in federal court.
His star power began to decline as his initial bid to repeal and replace Obamacare was pulled after it became clear Trump didn’t have the votes in the House of Representatives. A bill eventually passed in the House but died in the Senate.
He faced off against Washington insiders daily and feuded with senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s sonin-law, according to multiple reports.
He was later removed from security council as former general H.R. McMaster’s influence grew, and he was believed to be behind a recent Breitbart push to undermine McMaster. Bannon said he harbors no ill will toward the President. “If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,” Bannon told Bloomberg hours after his departure was announced by the administration. Bannon’s time at the White House appeared to be coming to an end in recent weeks. In July, Trump fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, a moderate Republican with whom Bannon regularly clashed before forming an alliance.
Trump fumed in recent days after Bannon gave an off-the-cuff interview to the American Prospect, CNN reported, in which he said there was no military plan for North Korea and boasted about how he was manipulating policy.
Bannon also admitted to being locked in a daily battle with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, over trade with China.
The President had also lashed out in private over how much credit his former campaign chief got for his electoral victory in the book “Devil’s Bargain,” Buzzfeed News reported.
While powerful conservatives in Congress urged Trump to keep Bannon on, his enemies inside the White House were pushing for his removal.
Anthony Scaramucci, the White House communications director for 11 days in July, said he would’ve fired Bannon if given the option.
Scaramucci accused Bannon of leaking to the press, and told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza the strategist was more involved with pleasuring himself than furthering the President’s agenda.
Many saw the appointment of former Marine general Kelly (photo left) as Priebus’ replacement as a sign that Bannon was on his way out.
Bannon’s relationship with Breitbart — a website known more for its ties to the alt-right movement, including white nationalists, than news — also prompted many critics to call for his ouster after the violence in Charlottesville.
Trump defended his pugnacious policy partner as recently as Tuesday.
“I like him. He is a good man. He is not a racist. I can tell you that,” the President said. “He is a good person.”
While he promised to keep fighting on behalf of his former boss in his renewed role as executive chairman at Breitbart, Bannon also expressed doubt that Trump will be able to accomplish the goals that the pair put in place.
“The path forward on the bigger things, like the wall, the bigger, broader things that we fought for, it’s just gonna be that much harder,” he told the Weekly Standard.