President
Donald Trump slammed his former Chief strategist, Steve Bannon in a
statement on Wednesday, after The Guardian reported that an upcoming
book on the 2016 election cycle quotes the former White House Chief
Strategist as saying that Donald Trump Jr. meeting a Russian lawyer
purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the campaign was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Donald Trump slammed his former Chief strategist, Steve Bannon in a
statement on Wednesday, after The Guardian reported that an upcoming
book on the 2016 election cycle quotes the former White House Chief
Strategist as saying that Donald Trump Jr. meeting a Russian lawyer
purportedly offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the campaign was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
The book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by author Michael Wolff, is based on more than 200 interviews with the president, his inner circle, and players in and around the Trump administration.
Trump’s statement read:
“Steve
Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” Trump wrote. “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.”
The
statement came after excerpts of a forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury:
Inside the Trump White House,” . In the book, Bannon slams the
president’s son, Donald Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and
campaign chairman Paul Manafort and calls their infamous meeting with a
Russian lawyer during the campaign “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
statement came after excerpts of a forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury:
Inside the Trump White House,” . In the book, Bannon slams the
president’s son, Donald Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and
campaign chairman Paul Manafort and calls their infamous meeting with a
Russian lawyer during the campaign “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
In his statement, Trump said Bannon didn’t deserve any credit for his White House win.
“Now
that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I
make it look,” Trump said. “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.”
The president also accused Bannon of leaking to the media while serving as an adviser at the White House.
“Steve
pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition
party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false
information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he
was,” Trump said. “It is the only thing he does well.”
He
added, “Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only
pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and
no clue, whom he helped write phony books.”
Bannon
who owns Breitbart, returned to the far-right news outlet Breitbart as
executive chairman in August after he was fired as White House chief
strategist. Still, he has been credited with having significant
influence over Trump and his administration’s agenda, even after his own
departure from the West Wing.
who owns Breitbart, returned to the far-right news outlet Breitbart as
executive chairman in August after he was fired as White House chief
strategist. Still, he has been credited with having significant
influence over Trump and his administration’s agenda, even after his own
departure from the West Wing.
Full statement below:
