Source says White House tried to pressure ex-Breitbart
editor to quit, a fall from grace for adviser
once viewed as unofficially running Trump
administration
By Ben Jacobs
August 18, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Steve Bannon is out as White House chief
strategist, a source has told the Guardian,
ending his highly contentious career at the
center of the Trump administration.
Multiple news reports confirmed his departure,
attributing the information to senior
administration sources.
Reports from multiple outlets on Friday stated
that Donald Trump had decided to remove Bannon
but that the White House was trying to work out
the details. A Trump ally told the Guardian that
the leaks about Bannon’s fate were part of an
effort to pressure the White House aide to step
down. “They are trying to get him to quit,” the
source said.
Minutes later, the Guardian learned that Bannon
was out.
The removal of the former Breitbart editor as
Trump’s chief strategist marks a remarkable rise
and fall for a rightwing ideologue regarded by
some as the power behind the throne.
Bannon had retreated from the limelight in
recent months, after bearing much of the blame
for the failure of the president’s initial
travel ban and amid speculation that his
increased profile had drawn Trump’s ire.
But a bizarre interview that
Bannon
gave to the liberal magazine the American
Prospect
– in which he claimed there was no military
solution for North Korea, called the far right a
“collection of clowns”, and said the left’s
focus on racism would allow him to “crush the
Democrats” – may have altered the balance of the
power inside the West Wing. For an aide long
suspected of leaking freely about rivals,
Bannon’s excuse that he thought the call was off
the record was not helpful.
Bannon’s departure leaves a major void in the
White House, depriving it of a man seen by some
as Cardinal Richelieu in cargo pants, an unkempt
schemer adept at manipulating the president, who
was famously depicted as a childlike naif to his
aide’s Grim Reaper in a Saturday Night Live
sketch. The characterization – summed up in a
Time magazine cover that hailed “the great
manipulator” – reportedly annoyed the famously
thin-skinned president.
Josh Green, the author of the book Devil’s
Bargain about Bannon and Trump, told the
Guardian: “Bannon may be the only person in the
White House with clear and distinct politics of
his own.”
His absence means more power and influence for
figures such as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
and the national economic council chair, Gary
Cohn, who have few, if any, ideological ties to
the Republican party and the conservative
movement.
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