Steve Bannon Has Done President Trump And The GOP A Favor, According To Report
When President Donald Trump responded to the comments attributed to Steve Bannon in Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, it was pretty clear that the president was not happy. To be fair, Trump’s upset was no surprise; after all, Bannon reportedly branded Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner as traitors. Bannon claimed that President Trump’s closest advisors meeting with Russian agents amounted to treason. President Trump reacted with a furious Twitter tirade against Bannon, labeling him “sloppy Steve” and claiming that Bannon cried and begged for his job when he got fired.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Bannon’s revelations come at a bad time for President Trump, and for the entire Trump family. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is reportedly closing in on Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, so anything that further muddies the water is bad news for Trump and his family.
Bannon later tried to roll back on his comments when he said that he had really meant that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was treasonous, not Donald Trump Jr. That was a pretty bold claim given that both Jared Kushner and Trump Jr. were present at the meeting with Manafort and a Russian lawyer. The meeting, it is alleged, was for the Trump campaign to receive information from Russian sources that would damage Hillary Clinton.
As reported by the Daily Mail, it would seem that President Trump is in no mood to forgive Steve Bannon. Speaking at a White House press briefing, Trump’s deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, claimed that the President Trump’s view is that Bannon “has lost his mind.”
As reported by the New Statesman, seeing Trump and Bannon turn on each other has been extraordinary. After all, Bannon was very much Donald Trump’s right-hand man and is widely credited with the “divide and conquer strategy” that won Trump the White House.
Bannon has always been a controversial figure with moderate Republicans. Bannon’s his right-wing views and alleged connections to white supremacist movements left many Republicans uncomfortable that he had President Trump’s ear. Bannon’s support for alleged pedophile Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race left many GOP activists glad that there is now some distance between him and Trump.
Since Bannon’s comments were published in Fire and Fury, most media outlets have taken the view that Bannon is now something of a gift to Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team. Fox News takes a very different view. Michael Goodwin, writing for Fox News, claims that Bannon’s comments actually do President Trump, and the GOP, a huge favor. Goodwin’s rationale is that Bannon’s brand of economic nationalism is now dead. He implies that the damage to the reputation of those at the top of the Trump administration was a price worth paying to get rid of Bannon.
With the Trump administration, and President Trump himself, seemingly mired in a never-ending round of scandal, it is difficult to see how Bannon’s interjection can be seen in a positive light.
