President Donald Trump fired back at former adviser Steve Bannon on Wednesday, saying that when Bannon was fired, “he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.” “We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates…[who] like me, love the USA and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down,” the president said.
Excerpts from a forthcoming book quote Bannon as saying that a meeting between top Trump campaign officials, including the president’s son, and individuals representing Russian interests during the campaign was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” Bannon also reportedly made disparaging remarks about the president’s son, Don Jr, saying, investigators are going to crack him “like an egg on national TV,” as well as the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, calling him “greasy.”
Bannon left the White House last summer but has purported to have remained an ally of the president’s. There has been some tension in the relationship of late, however, as Bannon was seen as being responsible for Republicans losing a Senate seat in deep-red Alabama last month.
“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,” the president said.
It would be unclear who would win in an intraparty battle between the president and Steve Bannon over the heart, soul and base of the Republican Party.