THE ERA OF TRUMP

[adwinistrator]

[TheReal_ND]

BraceYourself.jpg

[Kazmyr]

[adwinistrator]

The Daily Beast - Donald Trump Wanted Steve Bannon ‘Gone.’ Now, Bannonites Threaten ‘Revolution’ (Asawin Suebsaeng)

He’s out.
Late this week, President Donald Trump began telling senior staffers and outside confidants that he intended to sack Steve Bannon, the nationalist firebrand and White House chief strategist who helped steer Trump’s chaotic presidential campaign to victory.

Two Trump administration officials told The Daily Beast on Friday that the president has said that he wanted Bannon “out” and “gone” this week.
On Friday afternoon, they made it official, with chief of staff John Kelly informing Bannon of the change in direction.

Bannon did not respond to requests for comment on this story, but multiple reporters tweeted that Bannon had told them he had submitted his resignation on August 7, with an effective date of August 14—exactly one year to the date of him joining Trump on the 2016 campaign. Per the Team Bannon narrative, he stayed on through the week to help with the chaos in the wake of the white-supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day,” read a statement from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

The confusing, competing narratives over the timing of Bannon’s departure is an appropriate coda to White House stint that has been increasingly chaotic for months. Bannon has butted heads for months with various senior administration officials, including Trump family member Jared Kushner. If he knew he was leaving the White House early in August, he wasn’t telling close allies and associates.

As The Daily Beast reported on Sunday, Bannon had privately told friends—well after August 7—that Trump and Kelly weren’t itching to fire him; indeed, even supporting him. According to multiple sources close to Bannon and the president, Bannon has described Trump in conversations as “one of us” and a fellow right-wing “nationalist,” who still wanted a him working in his West Wing, despite external and internal pressures.

As we now know, Bannon would not last the month.

Towards the end of his tenure, even Bannon’s fellow anti-immigration hardliners and nationalist fellow travelers in the White House—such as senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and presidential assistant and Bannon’s former Breitbart employee Julia Hahn—had started to distance themselves from him. According to multiple White House sources, they vented about Bannon behind his back, viewing him as a leaker, as a shameless self-promoter, and as a “glory hog,” as another senior official characterized their sentiments.

“They’ve turned on Steve,” as one White House official told The Daily Beast, request anonymity in order to speak freely about internal drama.

Bannon has consistently denied allegations of engineering aggressive leak and smear campaigns against his Trump administration enemies. Now, however, he s plotting his next moves.

“Bannon had one hell of a run…” influential conservative figure and commentator Matt Drudge tweeted, shortly before Bannon’s exit was made official.

Bannon has privately mused about returning to the pro-Trump website Breitbart, which he ran before joining the Trump campaign, or even attempting to launch the vast, Fox-News-rivalling media empire that he had envisioned with Roger Ailes shortly before Ailes died. In May, one source close to President Trump’s now former chief strategist described Bannon’s unrealized dream project as “Bannon TV.”

While there are several West Wing officials who are cheering Bannon’s demise, others fear the kind of damage he could do now that he’s exiled from the administration. “There are some who are genuinely worried about what he could do from the outside, if thrown out,” a White House official conceded earlier this week.

Bannon continues to wield influence among pro-Trump media and the heavy-hitter Republican donors the Mercer family. And in the immediate aftermath of his departure, a top Breitbart editor signalled that the site would wage “#WAR” on the Trump administration.

“If he leaves, it’s French Revolution,” one source close to Bannon told The Daily Beast, minutes before news of Bannon’s exit broke on Friday afternoon.

[apeman]

Well

at least Hope Hicks is hot.






My expectations just get lower and lower.

[Speaker to Animals]

Let's just get the civil war started already. Dragging it out like this is exhausting.

[adwinistrator]

Business Insider - Steve Bannon is leaving the White House and may be returning to Breitbart (Allan Smith)

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is leaving the Trump administration, according to reports from multiple outlets Friday.

Conservative internet news mogul Matt Drudge first tweeted that Bannon "had one hell of a run..." He led his website with the headline "BANNON OUT AT WHITE HOUSE," but did not provide any additional details. He later added a note at the top of his site that Bannon may be returning to Breitbart, the far-right website he chaired before joining Trump's campaign last year.

Drudge has a close relationship with administration officials and has visited President Donald Trump's White House.

The White House confirmed the story Friday afternoon.

"White House chief of staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. "We are grateful for his service and wish him the best."

The news came as rumors of Bannon's departure reached a fever pitch in recent days.

The New York Times reported shortly after Drudge tweeted the news that Trump told senior aides he decided to remove Bannon, according to two administration officials who were briefed on the conversation. The Times additionally noted, however, that a person close to Bannon insisted that his departure was the chief strategist's idea. The source said Bannon submitted his resignation on August 7, to be announced earlier this week, but it was pushed back by the racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It was earlier this week that Bannon gave a series of on-the-record interviews and comments to publications such as The Times, The American Prospect, and The Washington Post. They followed Trump's Tuesday press conference when he said that some of the ralliers who stood alongside the white nationalists at this weekend's violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, were "very fine people."

It was in those interviews, particularly with The Prospect, that Bannon appeared to seal his fate, if he hadn't already tenured his resignation.

Bannon lashed out at National Economic Council Chair Gary Cohn, contradicted the president on North Korea, and called the white nationalist movement a "collection of clowns" and "losers." He also said he hopes Democrats "talk about racism every day."

"The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," Bannon said. "I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."

That interview irked Trump, CNN reported. The president was also upset with Bannon's participation in Josh Green's book "Devil's Bargain," which painted Trump and Bannon as seemingly equal in causing Trump's win last November. Trump was also annoyed by a Time magazine cover that depicted Bannon as "The Great Manipulator."

Bannon told some close associates that he did not believe his conversation with The Prospect's Robert Kuttner was on the record, but told others that the interview was strategic. He told The Daily Mail Thursday that his interview with The Prospect was good for the White House because it "drew fire away" from the president.

Earlier Friday, Axios reported the decision was "imminent" as Kelly was reviewing Bannon's status. A source close to Bannon told the publication that Bannon would defend Trump from the outside and unleash "fire and fury" on opponents of the Trump agenda.

"Get ready for Bannon the barbarian," the source told Axios.

Bannon was the leading nationalist figure in the White House. While Bannon often found himself in Trump's doghouse, the president was many times most closely aligned with Bannon's viewpoints on issues, even as other top administration officials tried to persuade him to another side.

At Breitbart, Bannon helped lead what he himself once called "the platform of the alt-right," the movement that brought together white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other fringe groups on the right. Democrats and Republicans have called for his removal for months, and his appointment as chief strategist was one of the most controversial, if not the most controversial, hire that Trump made to his team.

"Steve will do exactly what he has been doing from Day 1 — try to 'bring everything crashing down,'" Kurt Bardella, a former spokesperson for Breitbart, told Business Insider of what he believes Bannon will do next. "He will continue to use his weapon of choice, Breitbart, to attack his adversaries inside the West Wing — mainly Jared, Ivanka, Cohn, etc."

"He will relentlessly attack Congressional Republican leadership like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell," he continued. "In many ways, I think Steve will feel liberated. Free from the limitations of 'serving' or 'answering' to somebody. It's not in Steve's DNA to work for anybody but himself. He likes being the dictator. Now, he will be able to operate openly and freely to inflict as much damage as he possibly can on the 'globalists' that remain in the Trump Administration."

Bannon's departure comes during a period of massive turnover in White House staff. Within the past month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and communications director Anthony Scaramucci all either resigned or were fired.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

But Bannon had been on shaky ground for weeks, and his standing appeared in jeopardy when Trump’s new chief of staff, John Kelly, embarked on a personnel review of West Wing staff. Kelly had indicated to aides that significant changes could be coming, according to an official familiar with Kelly’s plans but not authorized to speak publicly.

Looks like the generals are closing ranks.

They need competent admin, not a big mouth... plus, they are probably cranky with him for shooting off about the DPRK. You aren't supposed to say we don't have any military options when you are part of the executive office.

All options are on the table. That is the line, stick to it Steve.

[SuburbanFarmer]

turns out one of those confederate statues was the final horcrux keeping Bannon alive.

Was it this one?

Spit coffee. Where do you find this shit???

[SuburbanFarmer]

Well

at least Hope Hicks is hot.






My expectations just get lower and lower.

Middle name: "For"



This is what winning looks like! America is great again! *slugs the bottle again*

I'm putting Breitbart on my daily reading list now. Rome looks so pretty with the lighting...