Steve Bannon began his war of revenge on the White House within hours of being fired Friday – taking up his old job at the top of Breitbart then declaring the Trump presidency ‘we fought for, and won, is over’.
The latest earthquake to rock President Donald Trump’s administration landed Bannon back as executive chairman of the 10-year-old news outlet on Friday afternoon.
The organization’s White House correspondent tweeted: ‘Steve Bannon returned to Breitbart News as Executive Chairman of Breitbart News and chaired our evening editorial meeting.’
And minutes after that revelation, Bannon was revealed to have told a reporter from the conservative Weekly Standard: ‘The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over.’
How it was revealed: Breitbart White House correspondent revealed that Bannon had left the White House and gone straight back to his old job
OUT: Steve Bannon was ousted from the White House dramatically on Friday just after midday – with friends say he resigned before he could be fired.
CONSERVATIVE: Trump’s chief strategist was the most conservative voice in the White House
UNDISPUTED POWER: Retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s new chief of staff, has now overseen the departure of Anthony Scaramucci and Steve Bannon after the firing of Reince Priebus
How the news broke: Matt Drudge, seen as close to much of the Trump camp, tweeted this message. Minutes later Bannon was known to be out.
Bannon had left the White House amid competing claims over whether he was fired or quit on his own.
But a senior administration official told DailyMail.com on Friday afternoon as the news rocketed around the world that Chief of Staff John Kelly made the decision and secured Trump’s approval.
The White House’s official line is that it was a mutual decision that involved Bannon himself.
‘White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,’ a statement from press secretary Sarah Sanders read on Friday.
‘We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.’
A source close to Bannon said: ‘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.’
The removal opens the way for a battles fought against his West Wing enemies – the group he calls the ‘globalists’ – which includes Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic adviser.
Bannon will wage his part of the war from the ‘Breitbart Embassy,’ a rowhouse on Capitol Hill that houses the news outlet’s offices.
But his few remaining White House allies – all of them more junior than him – are at the center of speculation over their future.
The most prominent aide linked to Bannon is Sebastian Gorka, a bearded British-American who was already under scrutiny for claims of links to the far-right in Hungary.
He has no apparent role beyond fending the White House on television.
Also under scrutiny will be Stephen Miller, who is strongly associated with Bannon’s economic nationalist agenda.
His future may be less perilous because he has become Trump’s chief speechwriter and in recent weeks appeared to have detached himself from Bannon.
Bannon is expected to see Breitbart, the website he turned into a vehicle for his America-first political ideas, turn on Trump ‘like they treated Obama’.
One Breitbart editor tweeted one word: ‘War.’ Its White House correspondent tweeted: ‘And kids, that’s the day when Bannon the Barbarian was born…’
The New York Times reports that a person close to Bannon insists Friday’s departure was his idea.
A White House aide told DailyMail.com on Friday that Bannon submitted an offer of his resignation on August 7, but would not say whether Trump ad accepted it at that time.
The move sends the most conservative and lightning-rod leader in the Trump West Wing out after less than seven months.
BREITBART WORLD REACTS: One of its editors, Joel Pollak, tweeted war – and the website’s White House correspondent predicted a new era for Bannon
‘Bannon had one hell of a run,’ Internet publisher Matt Drudge tweeted on Friday.
People close to Bannon say he’s likely to continue pushing the same portfolio of ideas that motivated him in the White House – only without the restrictions that come with working for the president.
‘Steve is now unchained,’ one told The Atlantic. ‘Fully unchained.’
‘He’s going nuclear,’ said another ‘You have no idea. This is gonna be really f***ing bad.’
In firing Steve Bannon, President Trump has lost his chief ideologue, the man who channeled his base and advocated for the populist-nationalist policies that helped propel Trump to victory.
But he has gained an unpredictable and potentially troublesome outside ally who has long experience running a media organization, and an even longer list of enemies.
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.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Bannon’s departure makes him the sixth top-shelf aide to depart since the president’ January 20 inauguration, including former national security adviser Gen. Mike Flynn, chief of staff Reince Priebus, press secretary Sean Spicer and two communications directors – Mike Dubke and Anthony Scaramucci.
A well-placed White House source told DailyMail.com on Friday that Kushner, his wife Ivanka Trump, interim communications director Hope Hicks, press secretary Sarah Sanders and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway are all remaining in their current positions.
A senior White House aide had told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Bannon’s job was secure. ‘Steve’s staying,’ the official said then.
But after that the former Trump campaign CEO who was once executive chairman of Breitbart News took down his guard.
He gave an interview to a liberal magazine in which he contradicted the president’s position on North Korea and trashed his more moderate colleagues for their views on an ‘economic war’ with China.
NOW HE WILL WANT REVENGE: Staff at his former website Breitbart predicted ‘war’ and the rise of ‘Bannon the Barbarian’ looking for vengeance on the ‘globalists’ who pushed him out- who are seen as being led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and featuring (second right) Gary Cohn, the president’s main economic adviser
Then there was one: Trump in the Oval Office with Mike Flynn, his disgraced national security adviser, and Steve Bannon, his now ousted chief strategist, just after the inauguation
TOOK ADVICE: John Kelly told Trump it was time for Bannon to go – and Trump got rid of him. The news emerged as the president was on his way to Camp David on Air Force One. One trigger had been a book which portrayed Bannon as the mastermind of Trump’s victory
And he tried gamely to frame that interview as a win for the president, claiming to DailyMail.com that the resulting furor drew attention away from Trump’s widely panned responses to the weekend’s racial violence in Charlottesville Virginia.
THE QUOTABLE STEVE BANNON
The outgoing chief White House strategist has never minced words. Here are some choice ones.
‘The baby boomers are the most spoiled, most self-centered, most narcissistic generation the country’s ever produced.’ (Gen Y TV, 2011)
‘We’re the platform for the alt-right.’ (Mother Jones, 2016, about Breitbart News)
‘Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power.’ (Hollywood Reporter, 2016)
‘I‘m a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.’
‘They’re wetting themselves’ (American Prospect, 2017, about his West Wing rivals)
‘Classic honey badger!’ (after a presidential debate when Trump made allegations about Bill Clinton’s sexual history)
‘They are trailer trash. They are grifters.’ (News.Com.Au, 2016, about the Clintons)
‘When you finish watching the film, you want to take a hot shower. You want to go home and shower because you’ve just spent an hour and fifteen minutes with the greasiest, dirtiest people you will ever see.’ (The Atlantic, August 2016, about the leftist Occupy movement)
‘There are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement – that, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that’s why they hate these women.’ (Political Vindication Radio, 2011)
Trump has not yet commented on Twitter or elsewhere.
Bannon is famously reclusive with his communications, eschewing social media and speaking only to a handful of reporters on a regular basis.
But the president was said on Friday to be furious over 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 was 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 would 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.’
Democrats cheered Bannon’s departure on Friday.
‘Steve Bannon’s firing is welcome news,’ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, ‘but it 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 added.
Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan tweeted: ‘Good. He had no business being there to begin with.’
And New York Democrat Nita Lowey, said on Twitter that ‘Steve Bannon should have never been a White House official, and his ouster is no substitute for moral leadership from the President.’
Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, one of the most liberal members of Congress, added in a tweet that ‘it doesn’t matter if @realDonaldTrump fires everyone in his administration. He’s the problem. #BannonOut’
Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown tweeted: ‘Steve Bannon should have never been in the WH. He has promoted anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny, embracing bigotry and hate speech.’
Bannon was a far-right outlier in the Trump campaign, helping the president coalesce his messaging around what he called ‘economic nationalism.’
That platform, a combination of focusing on growing jobs and refocusing global trade in America’s favor, won him broad support in America’s heartland.
SCENT OF DEATH: Saturday Night Live portrayed Steve Bannon as the grim reaper to Alec Baldwin’s Trump. But the president was not pleased at his chief strategist getting the attention, it was reported
It’s unclear where Bannon will go from the West Wing.
A senior executive at Breitbart News did not immediately respond to a question on Friday about whether its longtime chairman would return.
THE NON-STOP WHITE HOUSE BLOODBATH
Michael Flynn, national security adviser
Flynn was forced to resign on Monday February 13, over controversy surrounding his ties with Russia. His 24-day-long tenure was the shortest in the history of the office.
James Comey, FBI director
President Trump sacked Comey in a letter sent to the FBI director on Tuesday May 9. Trump’s decision to fire him was on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Comey had served as head of the FBI since September 2013.
Sean Spicer, press secretary
On Friday July 21, Spicer announced he was stepping down as White House Press Secretary after a tumultuous tenure. It was rumored the embattled press secretary was pushed out of his position after Trump hired Anthony Scaramucci.
Reince Priebus, chief of staff
Priebus was fired on Friday July 28 when he was summoned to the president’s Air Force One cabin and told he was out. He was then kicked out of the president’s motorcade and forced to leave the tarmac in a separate car.
Anthony Scaramucci, director of communications
Just ten days after Trump hired him to take over White House communications, the ‘Mooch’ was let go, on Monday 31 July. His short-lived role in the White House holds the record for the shortest in history of his position
But a close associate of Bannon’s told DailyMail.com to expect Breitbart to wage all-out war with the White House now that its standard-bearer would be on the outside.
‘They’re going to treat Trump like they treated Obama, since they won’t see any meaningful difference anymore,’ the source said of the Breitbart website.
The online news outlet Axios reported Friday morning that Bannon was setting himself up to be a martyr, a White House nationalist hero forced out by ‘globalists.’
Bannon had a net worth of at least $10.7 million when he started his work at the White House, according to financial disclosures he filed with the federal government.
As of late March he held between $1.1 million and $2.25 million in cash in three different bank accounts.
Most of the rest of his assets consisted of his consulting firms and stakes in film companies.
Bannon reported earning more than $1.3 in salaries last year, including $191,000 from Breitbart News. Much of his income flowed through Bannon Strategic Advisors – which netted him about $494,000.
His film production company Glittering Steel paid him more than $167,000 in fees.
Another $125,000 came from a consulting agreement with Cambridge Analytica, a data mining and crunching company where he was a vice president and served on the board.
Cambridge was among the Trump campaign’s most oft-used vendors. It is part-owned by the family of Robert Mercer, a billionaire investor who funds Breitbart.
Bannon and Mercer reportedly met on Wednesday for five hours to plot the course of his future.
Bannon, who joined Trump’s presidential campaign a year and a day ago as its CEO, was credited with bringing discipline and focus to the then-scattered operation.
He came directly from Breitbart News, where he set the tone for a ragtag journalism operation known for the same kind of right-wing populist messaging that made Trump seem like a native son in any corner of America’s heartland where he visited with disaffected white male voters.
A Harvard Business School and Georgetown University Foreign Service School graduate and veteran of investment banking titan Goldman Sachs, Bannon later struck it rich running his own investment firm.
A large part of his lifetime income came from a single deal, arranging long-term residual checks from a then-fledgling TV sitcom called Seinfeld when he helped negotiate the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to CNN.
Along the way he also produced 18 Hollywood films between 1991 and 2016 – including some conservative ideological polemics like ‘Occupy Unmasked.’
Before going to Goldman, however, Bannon was a U.S. Navy officer for seven years.
He served in the Persian Gulf during the Iran hostage crisis, where witnessing the Jimmy Carter administration mishandle an international debacle turned him into a Ronald Reagan admirer.
Before entering the White House, Bannon also co-founded and chaired the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit that helped with the publication of ‘Clinton Cash,’ a book that outlined Hillary Clinton’s alleged financial conflicts of interest during her time as secretary of state.
The book was widely credited with changing the national narrative about the Democrat who then appeared to be a shoe-in for the Oval Office.
Bannon’s months at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue coincided with Trump’s most chaotic early period, with internal power struggles, policy missteps and pop culture meltdowns.
That f***ing Steve Bannon [is] taking credit for my election
Liberals, both in office and in the major news media, portrayed him as a villainous bigot – often confusing his claim of being an economic nationalist with the disturbing movement of white nationalism.
His association with the controversial Breitbart website didn’t help. He once described it as ‘a platform for the alt-right.’
A February Time magazine cover branded Bannon ‘The Great Manipulator’ for his perceived Machiavellian hand in the Oval Office.
When it mercilessly lampooned Trump’s inner circle, ‘Saturday Night Live’ depicted him as a grim reaper-like skeleton in a dark cape, never showing him with a human face and running an actor’s voice through a sinister-sounding audio filter.
In one sketch, the inhuman Bannon persuades Trump, played by Alec Baldwin, to engage in a series of irresponsible phone calls with world leaders.
Afterward, the comical Bannon asks Baldwin’s Trump to get up from his desk.
‘Yes, of course, Mr. President,’ Trump replies, going to a much smaller desk and playing with a plastic toy.
Longtime Trump nemesis Rosie O’Donnell had offered to portray him, even publishing a photograph of herself in Bannon-esque clothing, makeup and haphazardly tousled hair.