President Trump is said to be furious over chief White House strategist Steve Bannon's habit of taking credit for his 2016 election.
In 'Devil's Bargain,' a book by Joshua Green published last month, Bannon is painted as the mastermind behind Trump's ascendancy.
And the president is not pleased.
'That f***ing Steve Bannon [is] taking credit for my election,' Trump recently told a confidant, according to the left-leaning Buzzfeed website.
The book is a look-back on Bannon's role in leveraging Trump's connection with his base last year as his populist economic message attracted middle-class white voters.
Trump took pains to avoid backing him too firmly during a press conference on Tuesday, referring to him only as 'Mr. Bannon' while defending him against charges of bigotry.
'He is not a racist. I can tell you that. He is a good person. He actually gets a very unfair press in that regard,' Trump said in response to a question about whether he'll keep him.
'We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon. He is a good person and I think the press treats him, frankly, very unfairly.'
A White House aide told Buzzfeed that 'the president is not happy with the Joshua Green book. Every other page is a love letter to Steve Bannon.'
Bannon joined the Trump campaign after the president had secured the GOP nomination.
It remains to be seen whether Bannon's fate will align with those of ousted White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer, who had on-again, off-again relationships with Trump's public approval before departing the administration under criticism from conservatives who lost patience with the Republican Party moderates.
Now it's conservatives who are backing Bannon, frustrated that a stone-tough populist economic movement could devolve into a garden variety Republican administration.
'If Bannon is fired, this Republican White House, which is supposed to be nationalist conservative, would be fully staffed by generals, Democrats, Clinton voters and the occasional Bush aide,' a Bannon ally said.
'What is this, the Twilight Zone?'p class="mol-para-with-font">Bannon has continued to signal that the president must keep his ties to his base strong, and to mock Democrats for creating distracting news cycles about race relations in America.
'This past election, the Democrats used every personal attack, including charges of racism, against President Trump. He then won a landslide victory on a straightforward platform of economic nationalism,' Bannon told The Washington Post on Thursday.
'As long as the Democrats fail to understand this, they will continue to lose. But leftist elites do not value history, so why would they learn from history?'
Trump has gone out of his way to distance himself from a media narrative that credits his inner circle, and not the president himself, for his election triumph.
'I love reading about all of the "geniuses" who were so instrumental in my election success. Problem is, most don't exist,' he tweeted last month.
Poster Comment:
#1: Deckard To: Willie Green (#0)
What a colossal ego-centric asshole!
If Trump keeps this shit up, he won't have anyone left to support him.
Bannon was one of the few Trump appointments that I agreed with.
Deckard posted on 2017-08-18 14:33:50 Reply Private Reply
#2: Tooconservative To: Willie Green (#0)
Total clickbait. The title infers that Bannon has already been fired over Trump's jealousy.
Ah, and Trump's closest associates just love to leak stuff to Buzzfeed, an enemy outlet according to Trump.
Trump barely reads his daily presidential briefs and other documents. I don't think he's doing any light reading about the 2016 campaign.
But the entire book is about Steve Bannon, not Trump.
This article, Willie, is dumbassery that should embarrass even you.
Even Newsweek gives a more moderate and accurate account of the book and the writer.
Newsweek: 'Devil's Bargain,' About Steve Bannon, Is Addictive, If Not Definitive
Tooconservative posted on 2017-08-18 14:35:27 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: Deckard (#1)
Well, sure.
But don't believe anything in this article. It's total clickbait and deliberately deceptive. And relies on the usual anonymous WH sources who are leaking to Buzzfeed, of all people. Buzzfeed was the outlet who published the Russian dossier with the lurid details of Trump having Russian whores pee on a bed that 0bama slept in. I would guess that leaking anything to Buzzfeed would result in immediately being fired by Trump.
I very much doubt that anything in the first half of the article is true. I do think that conservatives see Bannon as an ally they want to keep in the WH. They don't want Ivanka and Jared and Cohn and Mnuchin (all very liberal NYC Dems) to run the show. Bannon is seen as far more friendly to conservative causes and to keeping Trump on target to fulfill his campaign pledges.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-08-18 14:38:32 Reply Private Reply
#4: sneakypete To: Willie Green (#0)
If that's true,Trump needs a better grade of confidant. Someone that doesn't talk to reporters would be a good place to start.
sneakypete posted on 2017-08-18 15:10:47 Reply Private Reply
#5: misterwhite To: Deckard (#1)
If Trump lost, how many of them would have stood up and said it was their fault? None. They would have blamed Trump for the loss, just as they were blaming him for being behind during the election.
misterwhite posted on 2017-08-18 15:13:36 Reply Private Reply
#6: rlk To: Willie Green (#0)
rlk posted on 2017-08-18 15:36:35 Reply Private Reply
#7: misterwhite To: Willie Green (#0)
Bannon resigned two weeks ago, meaning The Daily Mail doesn't have a clue what's going on.
misterwhite posted on 2017-08-18 17:48:38 Reply Private Reply
#8: Hondo68 To: Willie Green (#0)
Hondo68 posted on 2017-08-18 18:14:18 Reply Private Reply
#9: Stoner To: hondo68 (#8)
Stoner posted on 2017-08-18 20:20:35 Reply Private Reply
#10: Stoner To: rlk (#6)
Sound advice that I suspect will not be received well, or followed.
Stoner posted on 2017-08-18 20:22:30 Reply Private Reply
#11: rlk To: Stoner (#10)
It's about 60 years too late.
rlk posted on 2017-08-18 20:56:34 Reply Private Reply