Trump sends Bannon packing

Kelly said behind strategist’s ouster

President Donald Trump appears in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 10, 2017
President Donald Trump appears in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 10, 2017

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, an architect of his 2016 general-election victory, in a White House shake-up that follows a week of contention over the role of racial bias in protest violence.

With Trump's presidency floundering and his legislative agenda stunted, administration officials said his new chief of staff, John Kelly, moved to fire Bannon in an effort to tame warring factions and bring stability to the White House.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a Friday afternoon statement to reporters: "White House Chief of Staff John F. 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."

A vocal hard-liner on trade and immigration, Bannon's influence, captured in a February cover of Time magazine with the headline "The Great Manipulator," permeated issues that propelled Trump's candidacy. He served as a key liaison to the president's conservative base.

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Bannon said Friday that he believes he can still wield influence from outside the West Wing.

"In many ways I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President Trump ran on. And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with," Bannon said.

Bannon has indicated to people that he does not intend to harm Trump and he has promised to be somewhat reserved about other administration officials with whom he'd previously butted heads, including Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser.

He told The Weekly Standard: "The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It'll be something else. And there'll be all kinds of fights, and there'll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over."

Bannon had been a lightning rod for controversy since joining Trump's campaign last summer, but he attracted particular scorn in recent days for encouraging and amplifying the president's divisive remarks in the wake of last weekend's deadly white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va.

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

"We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon," Trump said.

Just over a half-year in, Trump now has forced out his national security adviser, his chief of staff, his press secretary -- whose last day will be Aug. 31 -- and two communications directors, in addition to the FBI director he inherited from Barack Obama.

Bannon -- a former executive chairman of Breitbart News, a hard-right media website that has warred with the Republican establishment -- for months was locked in a long battle with Kushner and a coterie of like-minded senior aides, many with Wall Street ties.

He returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman and chaired the Friday evening editorial meeting, the news site announced.

TIES TO TRUMP'S BASE

Bannon had been expecting to be cut loose from the White House, people close to him said. One of them explained that Bannon was resigned to that fate and is determined to continue to advocate for Trump's agenda on the outside.

"No matter what happens, Steve is a honey badger," said this person, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. "Steve's in a good place. He doesn't care. He's going to support the president and push the agenda, whether he's on the inside or the outside."

Bannon has told associates in recent days that if he were to leave the White House, the conservative populist movement that lifted Trump in last year's campaign would be at risk. Bannon also predicted that Trump would eventually turn back to him and others who share the president's nationalist instincts, especially on trade.

Bannon allies said they expect him to remain largely loyal to the president while training his harshest fire on those in Trump's orbit he believes bring a Democratic, "globalist" worldview to the administration.

But with Bannon out of the West Wing, Breitbart News is more likely to begin mobilizing its audience against the White House on matters such as immigration where it thinks Trump is not keeping his campaign promises, said someone familiar with the organization's approach.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who is close to Bannon, said Trump's base could revolt.

"With Steve Bannon gone, what's left of the conservative core in the West Wing? Who's going to carry out the Trump agenda?" he asked in an interview.

King suggested that Trump fill Bannon's political-strategist seat with former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, who has his own connections to Trump's base.

"This looks like a purging of conservatives," King said. "The odds of him completing his campaign promises, even to the limit of his executive authority, have been diminished by this."

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, celebrated the news -- albeit cautiously.

"It's good news that he's not in the White House," said Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who has sought Bannon's firing since November. "But I don't think anyone should have any illusions that now that Steve Bannon is gone, the president is going to take very different positions."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement sounding similar concerns, calling Bannon's firing "welcome news" that "doesn't disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance."

"Personnel changes are worthless so long as President Trump continues to advance policies that disgrace our cherished American values," she said.

House and Senate Republican leadership, too, had long been wary of Bannon, and their allies were cheering Friday at news of his departure. But among the hard right in Congress -- including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus -- there was anger and doubt that anyone left in the White House shares their appetite for political confrontation.

'IT'S BEEN BUILDING'

The decision to fire Bannon was made by Kelly, the retired four-star Marine Corps general hired late last month as White House chief of staff, officials said.

It came after exactly three weeks in a position where he was given unilateral power to overhaul the West Wing staff in an effort to stanch warring among factions, aides and advisers and repeated leaks to the news media.

"This was without question one man's decision: Kelly. One hundred percent," one senior White House official said. "It's been building for a while."

This past week, as mainstream Republicans lambasted Trump for his handling of the Charlottesville violence, many on the White House staff led a drum beat for the president to dismiss Bannon and any other aides who have connections of any kind to the white nationalist movement, this official said.

"The fevered pitch was basically outrage from dozens on the staff that anybody who's ever had a part of that has to be purged immediately," this official said.

Kelly has no personal animus toward Bannon, said people familiar with his thinking. But Kelly was frustrated with Bannon's tendency to try to influence policy and personal matters not in his portfolio, as well as a negative media campaign he and his allies waged against national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

Trump, meanwhile, had been upset about Bannon's participation in a book by Bloomberg News reporter Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain -- particularly a cover photo giving equal billing to Trump and his chief strategist. Every time Green was on CNN, where he is now contributor, Trump grew unhappy with his references to Bannon as a thinker and strategist, and upset that the conversation was not instead about Trump.

Bannon further imperiled his standing by giving an interview this week to the liberal American Prospect magazine, in which he sniped by name at his enemies within the White House -- including Gary Cohn, the National Economic Council director -- and publicly contradicted the administration's stance on North Korea.

"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," Bannon said, playing down the U.S.' threat of military action in North Korea as nonsensical.

Bannon confidants said he believed his conversation with the magazine was off the record, but the damage was done. Kelly, said two people familiar with his thinking, was most frustrated by Bannon's comments on North Korea.

Bannon and Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund executive, and Mercer's daughter Rebekah collaborated on at least five ventures between 2011 and 2016, including Breitbart, which Bannon ran. He also served as vice president and secretary of the Mercer-funded Cambridge Analytica, a data science company that worked for Trump's campaign.

Bannon earned at least $917,000 in 2016, drawing at least $545,000 of that from four Mercer-backed ventures, according to a personal financial disclosure he filed in late March.

At the time, he estimated that his assets were worth between $11.8 million and $53.8 million.

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AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File

Steve Bannon

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AP/ANDREW HARNIK

Steve Bannon, seen at the White House on June 1, was let go as chief strategist for President Donald Trump on Friday. The decision to part ways was mutual, the White House said.

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AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

White House chief of staff John Kelly steps off Air Force One upon his arrival with President Donald Trump at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Hagerstown, Md., Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, en route to nearby Camp David, for a meeting with President Trump and his national security team to discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and the way forward in Afghanistan.

Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Haberman and Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Damian Paletta, Matea Gold and Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post; and by Jonathan Lemire, Jill Colvin, Julie Bykowicz and Bradley Klapper of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/19/2017

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