The New York Times had reported that the White House was discussing when and how Bannon would leave his position.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump on Friday fired Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist in the latest high-level White House shake-up, removing a powerful and controversial figure known for far-right political views.<\/p>\n
Bannon was a force behind some of Trump\u2019s most contentious policies, including a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority nations, and has fought with more moderate factions inside a White House riven with rivalries and back-stabbing.<\/p>\n
Bannon\u2019s ouster comes with the president, seven months into his term in office, increasingly isolated over his comments following white supremacist violence in the Virginia college town of Charlottesville last Saturday.<\/p>\n
As Trump came under fire from prominent fellow Republicans, business leaders and US allies abroad, he faced mounting calls for Bannon\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhite House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve\u2019s last day,\u201d White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Friday. \u201cWe are grateful for his service and wish him the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
A champion of economic nationalism and a political provocateur, Bannon, 63, is a former US Navy officer, Goldman Sachs investment banker and Hollywood movie producer.<\/p>\n
Bannon had been in a precarious position before but Trump opted to keep him, in part because his chief strategist played a major role in his 2016 election victory and is backed by many of the president\u2019s most loyal rank-and-file supporters.<\/p>\n
The decision to fire Bannon could undermine Trump\u2019s support among far-right voters but might ease tensions within the White House and with party leaders. Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress but have been unable to pass major legislative goals including a healthcare legislation overhaul because of fierce intra-party divisions.<\/p>\n
Trump ran into trouble in recent days after saying anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville were as responsible for the violence as the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who instigated the protests.<\/p>\n
Those remarks sparked rebukes from fellow Republicans, top corporate executives and some close allies even as some supporters, including vice president Mike Pence, stood by Trump.<\/p>\n
Under pressure from moderate Republicans to fire Bannon, Trump declined to publicly back him on Tuesday, although he left his options open. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,\u201d he told reporters at Trump Tower in New York.<\/p>\n
On July 28, Trump replaced his beleaguered White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, installing retired General John Kelly in his place in a major shake-up of his top team. Trump then ousted White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci on July 31 over an obscene tirade just 10 days after the president named him to the post. Scaramucci\u2019s hiring had prompted Sean Spicer, a Priebus ally, to abruptly resign as press secretary.<\/p>\n
A source familiar with the decision, which had been under consideration for a while, said Bannon had been given an opportunity to depart on his own terms. \u201cThe president made up his mind on it over the past couple of weeks,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
Kelly had been evaluating Bannon\u2019s role within the White House. \u201cThey gave him an opportunity to step down knowing that he was going to be forced to,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
Bannon damaged his standing by giving an interview to the liberal American Prospect this week in which he was seen to be undercutting Trump\u2019s position on North Korea. Bannon told associates he thought he was talking to an academic and thought he was off the record.<\/p>\n
He has told friends he could go back to Breitbart News if he were to leave the White House.<\/p>\n
Kelly\u2019s appointment was intended to bring order to a fractious White House beset with behind-the-scenes intrigue and back-stabbing.<\/p>\n
Bannon formerly headed the right-wing Breitbart News website and spearheaded its shift into a forum for the \u201calt-right,\u201d a loose online confederation of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semitics. Under Bannon\u2019s leadership, the Breitbart site presented a number of conspiracy theories about former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as well as Republicans deemed to be lacking in conservative bona fides.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, Breitbart has published a series of articles making a case for Lieutenant General HR McMaster\u2019s ouster as national security advisor on the basis that he is not a strong ally of Israel and that he has staffed the National Security Council with holdovers from the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
Critics have accused Bannon of harboring anti-Semitic and white nationalist sentiments. In a 2007 court filing during divorce proceedings, Bannon\u2019s former wife accused him of making anti-Semitic comments on at least three occasions.<\/p>\n
Just a year ago, Bannon took over as head of Trump\u2019s presidential campaign. In that role, Bannon helped engineer Trump\u2019s surprise victory over Clinton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New York Times had reported that the White House was discussing when and how Bannon would leave his position. President Donald Trump on Friday fired Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist in the latest high-level White House shake-up, removing a powerful and controversial figure known for far-right political views. Bannon was a force behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2475,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions\/2475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}