The budding war between Donald Trump and his former chief strategist Steve Bannon is starting to get good. Really good.
In the aftermath of Bannon kicking Don Jr. in the nuts and throwing him as well as Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort under the bus for what he said was a ‘treasonous’ and ‘unpatriotic’ meeting with some Russians at Trump Tower in 2016, No. 45 jabbed back.
Here’s Trump’s official statement on Bannon released not long ago (via the Washington Post)
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. 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. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
I mean you could see something like this coming giving Bannon’s past swipes at Kushner and Ivanka and not to mention both being on opposite sides when it came to that Alabama Senate special election but goddamn…
Trump’s statement also begs plenty of questions as well but none bigger than this, how does this play into his all important base?
Do Trump supporters shake this off? Do they continue to follow Trump whose statement undoubtedly makes guys like Mitch McConnell very happy? Or do they fall in line with Bannon who has always talked about the movement, the movement, the movement?
You gotta figure that Breitbart media support for Trump is going to take a hit. Nonetheless that right and far right civil war could be very real.
