After public break with Trump, Bannon exits Breitbart News
WASHINGTON Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is stepping down as chairman of Breitbart News Network after a public break with President Donald Trump, ending his relationship with the far-right website that he helped become widely influential and which in turn abetted his rise as a political adviser and would-be kingmaker.
Breitbart announced Tuesday that Mr. Bannon would step down as executive chairman of the conservative news site, less than a week after Mr. Bannon’s explosive criticisms of Mr. Trump and his family were published in a new book.
It was seen as a humbling denouement for Mr. Bannon, a figure who had reached the uppermost levels of power only a year ago when he served as one of Mr. Trump’s most influential and provocative counselors on both foreign and domestic policy. Amid his campaign to remake the Republican Party by fielding Trumpallied candidates to challenge incumbent lawmakers, the departure leaves him with no evident platform to promote his views and no financial basis for his preferred candidates.
A report on the Breitbart website quotes Mr. Bannon saying, “I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform.”
Mr. Bannon, a former investment banker and Hollywood filmmaker, had served as Breitbart’s executive chairman since 2012.
His departure from Breitbart followed what appears to have been a vote of no confidence from a key supporter and investor in the website, —Rebekah Mercer, a wealthy political donor whose ire was provoked by Mr. Bannon’s critical comments about Mr. Trump and his family in a new book, people at the company said. Ms. Mercer and her father, hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, own a minority share in Breitbart and are influential voices in its operation.
Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Bannon for comments made in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which questions the president’s fitness for office. Mr. Trump’s aides called him disloyal and disgraceful while the president branded his former chief strategist on Twitter as “Sloppy Steve,” an apparent reference to Mr. Bannon’s often unkempt appearance, and declared that “he lost his mind” when he was pushed out of the White House last August.
The president was livid about Mr. Bannon’s remarks — not just at the insults about his family, but also at his former strategist’s apparent intent to take credit for Mr. Trump’s election victory and political movement, according to a White House official and two outside advisers not authorized to speak publicly about internal conversations.
Mr. Bannon’s departure from Breitbart came as a shock to some of his allies. One said Mr. Bannon was telling people as recently as Monday that he expected to stay on.