Trump Dumps Bannon

(ZHE) — Update and confirmation: BANNON’S LAST DAY IS TODAY, WHITE HOUSE SAYS.

“White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best,” the White House said in an emailed statement.

And so, Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, the “nationalist firebrand” who helped to fuel Donald Trump’s dizzying rise to the presidency, is leaving the administration.

Reporting on the departure, the NYT says that Trump has decided to remove Bannon, and he and top aides “were debating when and how to dismiss” the strategist. Ultimately, Bannon was fired, although there was some confusion:  “A person close to Bannon” said the chief strategist first decided to leave, according to the Times, having submitted his resignation on August 7, but the announcement was delayed after violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, the newspaper reported.

As the Post writes, while Bannon had been on the outs with Trump before, the president suspected Bannon was one of the main leakers in the administration, trashing his colleagues in the press.

The notoriously thin-skinned president also resented the publicity Bannon had been getting as the supposed mastermind of Trump’s campaign and upset victory. One White House source told Axios, “His departure may seem turbulent in the media, but inside it will be very smooth. He has no projects or responsibilities to hand off.”

Bannon in recent days gave interviews to publications including the New York Times in which he defended Trump’s controversial comments in the wake of the racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

Speaking to the Post, a source close to Bannon added: “This week is a good window into what Bannon outside the [White House] would look like: A strong defense of POTUS and ‘fire and fury’ for enemies of the Trump agenda. Get ready for Bannon the barbarian.”

* * *

Earlier:

The final nails were just hammered into the coffin of Steve Bannon’s White House stay.

After earlier headlines that a decision is imminent, none other than Matt Drudge has taken to his personal Twitter account – a very unusual act – to seemingly bid Bannon farewell…

Bannon had one hell of a run…

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) August 18, 2017

Drudge reports:

• SENIOR ADVISOR MOVING ON AFTER IMPRESSIVE RUN, THE DRUDGE REPORT HAS LEARNED…


• POPULIST HERO MAY RETURN TO BREITBART…

The New York Times, which promptly followed, reports that while Bannon submitted his resignation on August 7, there is still a chance that Trump could reverse course and “keep Bannon”

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 it was delayed in the wake of the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va.

Bannon’s termination follows Bannon’s “off the record” Wednesday interview with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, 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 ten 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 female 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.

While Bannon was instrumental in getting Trump elected, their alliance ruptured as 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. Cohn is a registered Democrat, and both he and Ms. Powell have been denounced by conservative media outlets as being antithetical to Trump’s populist message.

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.

And so, Goldman wins again, or as Breitbart will put it: Globalist 1 – 0 Nationalist.

Markets love it, with the Dow reversing all of its earlier losses, up 32 at last check.

What happens next is unknown but as Axios said earlier, once freed from the White House, one Bannon friend warned: “Get ready for Bannon the barbarian.”

By Tyler Durden / Republished with permission / Zero Hedge / Report a typo

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