Well, that didn’t take too long.
During a brief chat with the New York Post, Donald Trump didn’t seem particularly keen on his so-called senior strategist Steve Bannon – the brains behind some of the president’s harder right-wing, more viciously nationalist aspirations. After Bannon was booted from the National Security Council last week, this seems a grim harbinger for him.
The Post asked Trump whether Trump still had faith in Steve Bannon, and Trump’s response probably wouldn’t be that reassuring if your name is Steve Bannon.
I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late. I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist, and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.
That’s the kinda sentence you overhear at work just before you get pulled into a ‘chat’ which ends in you not having your job anymore. “Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will,” Trump said, in reference to the supposed feud between Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
According to the folks over at Axios, Trump’s comments were actually a big ol’ surprise to the Bannon camp, who are genuinely spooked by his apparent change of heart. They’re apparently worried that more centrist types like economic advisor Gary Cohn have Trump’s ear now, and that there’s no one else around him to push a much harder nationalist agenda.
Did we mention that Bannon looks like fifty coconuts shoved into a suit? Because he looks like fifty rotting coconuts shoved haphazardly into a Lowes suit. Irrelevant, sure – but true.
Axios’ Mike Allen posits that Bannon fucked up by “[doing] little to build alliances and a personal retinue within the White House, while his rivals did the opposite”.
It could be bluster, or Bannon’s position in the White House might be compromised. Let’s see.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: Getty Images.
