President Trump says his former campaign guru Steve Bannon “lost his mind” after exiting his White House strategist job. Now the Net is losing it.
Donald Trump Jr. said via Twitter: “Wow, Just looked at the comments section on Breitbart. Wow. When Bannon has lost Breitbart, he’s left with . . . umm, nothing.”
The latest civil war among GOP factions was ignited by comments attributed to Bannon in a new book.
In it, Bannon calls the meeting between a Russian lawyer and the president’s eldest son, son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Another quote from Bannon: “Hope Hicks was thought of as [Trump’s] real daughter while Ivanka was thought of as his real wife.”
CNN said of the spat: “As the 2018 midterms approach, Bannon’s access, influence and power are now all in question after his comments to journalist Michael Wolff in the forthcoming book ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’ hit perhaps too close to home for the president.”
In a 266-word statement, Trump said:
Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.
Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.
Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.
We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.
Early reactions:
Wow, Just looked at the comments section on Breitbart. Wow. When Bannon has lost Breitbart, he’s left with . . . umm, nothing.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 3, 2018
So Bannon is quoted as saying Trump and family acted treasonously for taking a meeting with Russians when they had dirt on Clinton.
Trump calls Bannon a nut.
And Republicans side with Trump
— Sam Stein (@samstein) January 3, 2018
Donald Trump saying with regard to Steve Bannon that he lost his mind has so many levels of irony that my mind can’t process it. https://t.co/kYPUOYkNFP
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 3, 2018
Bannon needs either to deny what’s written in the book, or primary Trump for President. There’s really not much ground in between.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 3, 2018
Business as usual in Trumplandia: In first 3 days of 2018, Trump provokes Pakistan’s fury, says his equipment is bigger than Kim’s; Bannon says Don Jr & Kush committed treason; Trump says Bannon lost his mind and never mattered anyway. And day 3 still has 10 hours to go. Ho hum.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) January 3, 2018
By tonight, Trump will blame President Obama for not properly vettin’ Steve Bannon.
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) January 3, 2018
Today President Trump said that Steve Bannon, the man who ran his campaign, served as Chief White House Strategist, and was given top-secret security clearance as aNational Security Council member, is ‘INSANE’!!
Just think about that for a minute…
— Brian Krassenstein???? (@krassenstein) January 3, 2018
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/trump-says-bannon-lost-his-mind-after-leaving-white-house
More Bannon:
“Hope Hicks was thought of as [Trump’s] real daughter while Ivanka was thought of as his real wife.”
That disheveled meth-ball may be a god-awful human being but he knows how to scorch a piece of earth.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 3, 2018