SLOPPY STEVE SAYS SORRY!
Ex-White House big apologizes for hitting ‘stable genius’ Trump and his ‘treasonous’ son
STEPHEN BANNON says he’s sorry.
The far-right strategist began his atonement for calling actions taken by President Trump’s oldest son “treasonous” — an accusation that caused a rift with the commanderin-chief and his family, as well as those who support Trump.
“Donald Trump Jr. is both a patriot and a good man,” Bannon said Sunday in a statement to Axios. “He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around.”
The Breitbart News bigwig walked back statements he made to author Michael Wolff in his explosive book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” A highlight was bashing Donald Trump Jr.’s controversial June 2016 meeting at the family’s Fifth Ave. tower with a Russian lawyer as “unpatriotic.” “I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr. has diverted attention from the President’s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency,” he continued. Bannon didn’t deny making the comments to Wolff. In his explanation, he blames his remarks on his time as a naval intelligence officer during the Cold War, when he was
stationed on a destroyer hunting Soviet submarines.
Bannon, 64, said his comments were taken out of context and he was actually mad at Paul Manafort, his predecessor leading the campaign, who he called “a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate.”
“He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends,” Bannon said. “To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.”
Wolff says Bannon told him prosecutors investigating possible campaign collusion with Russia would “crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”
Amid the “Fire and Fury” crisis, several White House and campaign officials have dismissed the extent of Bannon’s influence — even those who previously worked closely with him. The President himself disavowed his campaign’s chief strategist, calling Bannon “Sloppy Steve.” On Saturday, Trump also defended himself, announcing he’s always been “like, really smart” and considered himself a “stable genius.”
On Sunday, White House senior adviser Stephen Miller took up the cause and bashed his former mentor while dubbing Trump a “political genius.”
“It’s tragic and unfortunate that Steve would make these grotesque comments so out of touch with reality, and obviously so vindictive,” Miller said Sunday in a tense interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“The book is best understood as a work of very poorly written fiction,” Miller said on “State of the Union.” “And I also will say that the author is a garbage author of a garbage book.”
Wolff is no kinder to Miller, describing him in the book as “a 55-year-old trapped in a 32-yearold’s body” and saying he “knew little about policy,” is unread and rubs people the wrong way.
Meanwhile, as uber-conservatives including former Breitbart News backer and billionaire Rebekah Mercer sided with Trump, Bannon catalogued his own loyalty.“My support is also unwavering for the President and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama,” he told Axios.