Steve Bannon burns his bridges with Donald Trump...

Stephen Bannon. Gage Skidmore. 

Donald Trump has unloaded on former White House adviser and Breitbart editor Stephen Bannon after quotes appeared in new book blasting Donald Trump Jr's meeting with a Russian lawyer. The Hill. Bannon, echoing the Democrats attacks on Donald Trump Jr. said the meeting was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic" in a new book coming out next week. Trump and his allies blasted Steve Bannon with Trump releasing a statement saying Bannon had lost his mind and downplaying Bannon's role in the Trump administration. So far Steve Bannon has not released a statement but his news outlet, Breitbart, seems to have confirmed that his quote was correct.

My Comment:

Huge mistake by Steve Bannon. He is going to lose his audience by picking this fight with Donald Trump. Actually supporting the Democrats line of attack on the Russia narrative is way more treasonous that Trump Jr's meeting with the Russian lawyer, who was employed by Fusion GPS. This attack by Bannon is an unbelievable betrayal of Trump and his base and is one that the left will use to attack Trump. Given how much damage has been done to the Russia narrative and the looming Hillary Clinton and FBI scandals, it is absolutely insane to attack Trump Jr. on this now. Especially since his audience widely agrees that the entire meeting was an attempt to entrap Trump Jr. by Democratic operatives and nothing of substance happened. 

I generally think that this is personal with Bannon. He seems like he is still mad that he was pushed out of his advisory post at the White House and he is doing this to get revenge on his enemies in Washington. He's not attacking Trump on his policy differences, which there are a few, but by echoing the attacks of his enemies. He wouldn't do that unless he was seriously angry at Trump.  

Bannon has fought with Trump and his staff before. I remember when H.R. McMaster was promoted to National Security Adviser Bannon brought his feud with him to the pages of Breitbart, which he still had quite a bit of influence with. For several weeks Breitbart had negative headline after negative headline focusing on McMaster as if it was important news. In reality it was largely a personality split with some policy differences as well. Bannon also leaked damaging stories about McMaster to other journalists, including Mike Cernovich. It honestly made Breitbart unreadable for awhile until Bannon was canned and the issue became moot. 

Bannon has also long feuded with Ivanka Trump and her husband White House adviser Jared Kushner. Though the tone on those attacks were less shrill as the ones on McMaster, they have continued to this day. One of the most irritating things about Breitbart's current editorial direction is the childish insults on "Princess" Ivanka and "Mr Perfect" Kushner. 

Bannon was largely believed to be fired for botching the response to the Charlottesvile incident where a white nationalist was accused of ramming into a crowd. Though Bannon probably had a point that Antifa was largely responsible for the violence there, it played horribly in the national media and cost Trump quite a bit of credibility. Though the botched handling of the issue was mostly due to the media, Bannon did give him bad advice and he got fired for it.

Finally, Bannon backed the wrong horse in the Alabama Senate race. Instead of backing the Trump backed candidate, Luther Strange, Bannon went all in with Roy Moore. Even before the sexual allegations against him, Moore was a toxic candidate. Strange, though an ally of Mitch McConnell, had been completely loyal to Donald Trump and his Senate efforts but Bannon smeared him daily in Breitbart and campaigned for Roy Moore. This ended up costing the GOP an incredibly safe seat in Alabama. Whatever Luther Strange's sins were, he would have been a much better ally in the Senate than Doug Jones will ever be. 

I think that was the turning point with Trump. He was willing to tolerate Bannon's attacks on his advisers but only if he managed to deliver results. Once he failed to do so his goodwill was gone. This quote in a scandalous book that seems designed to bash the president was the final straw and now Bannon is likely persona non grata in the Trump camp. Since Bannon was already persona non grata among the establishment GOP, he will likely lose quite a bit of influence.  

The fear now is that he will take his Breitbart audience with him. Breitbart is still hugely popular on the right but I am not so sure. A brief perusal of the comment section on Breitbart has shown their readers to largely be on Trump's side here. A few individuals suggested that the quotes could be fake, but even that suggests that the readers didn't agree with what he said. I am guessing that if Bannon tries to go to war with Trump, he's going to lose Breitbart's readership. I personally would have no problem with cutting them out myself, as they are fairly biased anyways. There are other outlets to read to find a right wing spin on the news. Time will tell if that is necessary or not. I am guessing that Bannon will sense where the winds are blowing and will have to apologize.

As for my opinion on Bannon, I have to say that I generally agree with him politically, but I have been dissatisfied with the man's behavior for quite some time. He never seemed like a team player, both in terms of the Trump administration and among conservatives in general. My biggest problem with the man is that he is all about himself and not the movement. These kinds of spats help nobody but the Democrats and put everything we accomplished by electing Donald Trump at risk. 

If I had any advice for Bannon it would be this. The world doesn't revolve around you. Trying to divide and conquer with Donald Trump isn't going to work and is only going to end up with everyone on the right being weaker. Stop attacking him, his staff and his followers and focus your energies on the Democrats. If not, shut the hell up and go away. This is the last thing we need right now.