Is Team Trump's top-ranking white nationalist on his way out the door? After two months of policy blunders—all of which had the effect of making Donald Trump look like a rube—speculation is rampant that Steve Bannon, the Breitbart chief turned campaign guru turned top White House strategist, is rapidly losing favor with the boss.
Trump himself was asked how he felt about Bannon; let's just sit ourselves right down and savor his response for a moment.
“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”
Ah, that familiar Trump pattern. Nobody did nothin' for Donald Trump, he did it all himself. And that guy currently in trouble, the guy with the office one door over who seemingly never is far from the presidential elbow? Barely knew him. Couldn't pick him out of a crowd. No more consequential than the guy who presses the elevator buttons for me.
Historically, this particular string of words has meaning. Bill Palmer notes that the last two times Team Trump has piped up to say that top lieutenants in their own campaign were mere nobodies, the goal was to distance the White House from Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn after each was implicated as a key figure in the ongoing investigation of Russian espionage ties to Trump's presidential bid. Whether Trump is unwittingly implying that Bannon, too, is about to find his name in the headlines for ties to Russian figures is unclear, but "he was not involved in my campaign until very late” as a response to "do you have confidence in Steve Bannon?” is, at the least, a sure sign that Trump's contemplating throwing Bannon under the next bus and being done with him.
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2p94Exp
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