Friday, 18 August 2017

Trump Tells Aides He Has Decided to Remove Stephen Bannon

quote [ Stephen K. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the president’s family.

Mr. Bannon’s dismissal followed an Aug. 16 interview he initiated with a writer with whom he had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, Mr. Bannon mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical: “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.” ]

Now Bannon is free to say what he really thinks.

Text of NYT article in extended.

Reveal


Trump Tells Aides He Has Decided to Remove Stephen Bannon


Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, on Aug. 2 at the White House. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled White House chief strategist who helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election, according to two administration officials briefed on the discussion.

The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr. Bannon. The two administration officials cautioned that Mr. Trump is known to be averse to confrontation within his inner circle, and could decide to keep on Mr. Bannon for some time.

As of Friday morning, the two men were still discussing Mr. Bannon’s future, the officials said. A person close to Mr. Bannon insisted the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this week, but the move was delayed after the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va.

Mr. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the president’s family.

But the loss of Mr. Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.

Mr. Bannon’s many critics bore down after the violence in Charlottesville. Outraged over Mr. Trump’s insistence that “both sides” were to blame for the violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally, leaving one woman dead, human rights activists demanded that the president fire so-called nationalists working in the West Wing. That group of hard-right populists in the White House is led by Mr. Bannon.

On Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump refused to guarantee Mr. Bannon’s job security but defended him as “not a racist” and “a friend.”

“We’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Bannon’s dismissal followed an Aug. 16 interview he initiated with a writer with whom he had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, Mr. Bannon mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical: “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”

He also bad-mouthed his colleagues in the Trump administration, vowed to oust a diplomat at the State Department and mocked officials as “wetting themselves” over the consequences of radically changing trade policy.

Of the far right, he said, “These guys are a collection of clowns,” and he called it a “fringe element” of “losers.”

“We gotta help crush it,” he said in the interview, which people close to Mr. Bannon said he believed was off the record.

Privately, several White House officials said that Mr. Bannon appeared to be provoking Mr. Trump and that they did not see how Mr. Trump could keep him on after the interview was published.

Mr. Bannon’s departure was long rumored in Washington. The president’s new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who was brought on for his ability to organize a chaotic staff, was said to have grown weary of the chief strategist’s long-running feud with Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser.

One White House official, who would not be named discussing the president’s thinking, said Mr. Trump has wanted to remove Mr. Bannon since he ousted Reince Priebus as his chief of staff three weeks ago; Mr. Bannon had been aligned with Mr. Priebus. But Mr. Trump changed his mind as several defenders of Mr. Bannon warned the president that he risked losing supporters who saw Mr. Bannon as a conduit of their views.

Since then, Mr. Kelly has been evaluating Mr. Bannon’s status, according to the official. The president and Mr. Kelly have talked over the past several days and Mr. Bannon had planned to put his resignation in motion in the coming days, this person said.

Mr. Bannon has been in a battle with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, since the spring.

Mr. Bannon, whose campaign against “globalists” was a hallmark of his tenure steering the right-wing website Breitbart.com, and Mr. Kushner had been allies throughout the transition process and through the beginning of the administration.

But their alliance ruptured as Mr. Trump elevated the roles of Gary D. Cohn, his top economic policy adviser and a former official at Goldman Sachs, and Dina Powell, a former Bush administration official who also worked on Wall Street. Mr. Cohn is a registered Democrat, and both he and Ms. Powell have been denounced by conservative media outlets as being antithetical to Mr. Trump’s populist message.


Bonus: Tina Fey offers coping advice:
Weekend Update: Tina Fey on Protesting After Charlottesville - SNL
[SFW] [politics] [+4 Good]
[by HoZay@5:21pmGMT]

Comments

Hugh E. said @ 6:06pm GMT on 18th Aug [Score:4 Funny]
Good riddance. Now we can expect Trump to act more presidential and be the uniting leader this country needs.
HoZay said @ 6:20pm GMT on 18th Aug [Score:1 Funny]
Good news, everyone!
Morris Forgot his Password said @ 5:38pm GMT on 18th Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Brie tbart is mirroring the story. I thought Brie tbart considered the NYT as a fake news site?
steele said @ 5:48pm GMT on 19th Aug [Score:1 Interesting]
Seeking Reset, Trump Dines With Some of His Biggest Donors

Mr. Mercer’s presence was noteworthy, since the White House confirmed Friday that Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, had been ousted. Mr. Mercer has long funded the political and business activities of Mr. Bannon, who was brought onto Mr. Trump’s campaign at the recommendation of Mr. Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah Mercer.

A source familiar with the dinner said that Mr. Bannon’s future was not a topic of conversation.

But the day before the dinner, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Mercer huddled for hours at Mr. Mercer’s Long Island estate to discuss possible ventures.

In a statement, Rebekah Mercer said she and her father were “ecstatic to have him back at the helm of Breitbart News, where he will continue to fight for personal liberties and against an elite establishment that seeks, above all else, to amass its own power at the expense of the people.” Two people close to the Mercers said they never favored Mr. Bannon being in the White House, and they noted that their support for Mr. Trump came late in the campaign.

Reveal
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Trump dined on Thursday night at his Bedminster golf club with a handful of the right’s most generous donors, as he tried to build support for his hobbled legislative agenda amid mounting criticism from within his own party, three people briefed on the dinner said.

The dinner was scheduled weeks ago as part of a donor-outreach initiative by the Trump administration as it prepares an overhaul of the tax code, according to several people involved in the planning.

But it came as the White House is struggling to move past the racially charged controversy that Mr. Trump fueled in the wake of the deadly white supremacist rally last weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Trump’s response to the rally — including his casting of blame on counterprotesters and his defense of Confederate monuments — has created a rift between Mr. Trump and previously friendly elements of the business community, making support from donors like those gathered Thursday all the more important.

It’s unclear to what extent the Charlottesville rally and its aftermath were discussed at the Thursday dinner.

The invited donors and their families have combined to donate millions of dollars to committees supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign and inauguration, and Mr. Trump’s team hopes they will contribute millions more to groups pushing his legislative agenda. They included the New York investor Robert Mercer, the Kentucky coal executive Joseph W. Craft and the Wisconsin roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, according to people familiar with the dinner.

Mr. Mercer’s presence was noteworthy, since the White House confirmed Friday that Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, had been ousted. Mr. Mercer has long funded the political and business activities of Mr. Bannon, who was brought onto Mr. Trump’s campaign at the recommendation of Mr. Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah Mercer.

A source familiar with the dinner said that Mr. Bannon’s future was not a topic of conversation.

But the day before the dinner, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Mercer huddled for hours at Mr. Mercer’s Long Island estate to discuss possible ventures.

In a statement, Rebekah Mercer said she and her father were “ecstatic to have him back at the helm of Breitbart News, where he will continue to fight for personal liberties and against an elite establishment that seeks, above all else, to amass its own power at the expense of the people.” Two people close to the Mercers said they never favored Mr. Bannon being in the White House, and they noted that their support for Mr. Trump came late in the campaign.

Other donors also were invited to Thursday’s dinner but did not attend, including Paul Singer, the New York hedge fund billionaire.


He declined the invitation weeks ago because he was going to be on vacation, according to one of the people familiar with the planning of the event.

Mr. Singer, who ardently opposed Mr. Trump during the Republican primary, seemed to warm to the new president after his election. He donated more than $1 million to the committees funding Mr. Trump’s transition and inauguration and visited Mr. Trump at least twice in the White House.

But Mr. Singer also is a major donor to Jewish causes, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, which criticized Mr. Trump this week over his response to the events in Charlottesville. In a statement, the coalition called on the president “to provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism.”

Mr. Singer’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment on whether he felt similarly about Mr. Trump’s response to the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, at which a counterprotester was killed after a car plunged into the crowd.

Representatives for Mr. Mercer, Mr. Craft and Ms. Hendricks did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House did not respond to questions about whether the Charlottesville rally and aftermath were discussed.

But people familiar with the dinner cast it as part of an ongoing series of donor-outreach events headlined by Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to cultivate and maintain support for the administration’s agenda from wealthy activists who have the capacity to fund conservative advocacy groups that seek to influence policy debates.

White House allies were disappointed with what they considered insufficient support from those groups for the failed Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The White House has worked assiduously to cultivate more support from advocacy groups and their donors ahead of a push to overhaul the tax code. Their support could be even more critical if businesses and trade groups, which might otherwise support tax reform, hold back out of concern of affiliating with Mr. Trump.
HoZay said @ 6:14pm GMT on 19th Aug
Some serious scheming and conniving going on.
damnit said @ 6:12pm GMT on 18th Aug
Just FYI, this wasn't Trump distancing himself from white supremacist Steve Bannon. Trump is letting him go because he disagreed and contradicted him.
Ankylosaur said @ 6:20pm GMT on 18th Aug
So when's he going to let America go?
damnit said @ 6:26pm GMT on 18th Aug
According to his co-author (read ghost writer) on Art of the Deal, he's probably resigning soon.
knumbknutz said @ 6:39pm GMT on 18th Aug
Well, if I had a betting pool going, I would have my money on Bannon going out as ugly as hell....as in picking up body parts out of the Lincoln bedroom and hosing the blood off the front sidewalks after all is said and done, ugly as hell.
HoZay said @ 6:45pm GMT on 18th Aug
I'm ok with that.
knumbknutz said @ 6:47pm GMT on 18th Aug
#WAR - just tweeted by breibart.com
Ankylosaur said @ 7:01pm GMT on 18th Aug
Also just now on Breitbart: "Get ready for Bannon the barbarian."

Oh dear god, Steve, please don't start wearing loin cloths.
knumbknutz said[1] @ 6:49pm GMT on 18th Aug
mechanical contrivance said @ 7:55pm GMT on 18th Aug
This should be good.
HoZay said @ 8:41pm GMT on 18th Aug
Not if Bannon took the football when he left.
Kama-Kiri said @ 11:57pm GMT on 18th Aug
Oddly enough the reported comments in that interview he gave seem fairly sensible: that N. Korea is a sideshow with no military solution, that the neo nazis are a bunch of clowns...

But Bannon had outlived his usefulness, and Trump (prompted by Kelly most like) now feels he can safely cut the alt-right loose along with any other excess baggage from the post-election obligations.

Amusing sidenote, with Bannon and Preibus out this means the US is now run jointly by the Pentagon and Jared.
captainstubing said @ 6:12am GMT on 19th Aug
"Amusing sidenote, with Bannon and Preibus out this means the US is now run jointly by the Pentagon and Jared."

Oh, that's fun!
ComposerNate said @ 2:03pm GMT on 19th Aug
Is Trump able to fire Pence?
HoZay said @ 3:20pm GMT on 19th Aug [Score:1 Interesting]
No, and his usual humiliate-until-he-resigns tactic won't work with Pence, who has his eyes on the prize.

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