WaPo’s Gearan: Bannon’s ‘Unpredictability’ Throwing Clinton Camp ‘Off Their Footing’

Friday on Bloomberg’s “With All Due Respect,” while commenting on Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon taking on a new role as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, national politics correspondent for The Washington Post Anne Gearan said there is concern in the Hillary Clinton camp that Bannon’s “unpredictability” can “throw people off their footing.”

Gearan said, “I think the departure of Manafort, he was first sidelined, and then gone—the initial read from inside Clinton world on the shakeup was, ‘Wow well, that’s confirming that things are in a giant mess over there,’ so they thought that was good. The departure of Manafort is a bit of a wildcard, right? He was a tempering influence, or at least he attempted to be, and they really don’t know what to expect now. Uncertainty is never a good thing.”

When asked about Bannon she said, “They felt they could draw some sort of box, as long as Manafort was in the picture. He would not let Trump do X, whatever X is, and those lines are basically not there anymore.”

She added, “They are not wrong to say from the beginning, that they expected there to be a bloodbath in September or October, into November, that it would be extremely nasty. And they would be ready for anything. I mean, from Monica Lewinsky to whatever. Hillary Clinton knows, in the process of running for office, all those things will come her way. I think what they didn’t plan for was the sort of complete, unpredictability and kind of, you know, it’s beyond the question of how do they respond. It’s a question of, they have absolutely no idea what they might be hit with on any day, and that throws people off their footing. I think there is definitely now a sense, within a lot of the close Clinton advisers, that, I mean, it’s just buckle up. They figure it’s going to be extraordinarily nasty and unpleasant on a day-to-day basis, and that she is ready for it. I will say, I mean, she has shown thus far a pretty thick skin. She has — pretty thick skin. She has not gotten rattled or nasty herself in public, for many months now, and if she is able to keep that up, I think, from the Clinton world’s perspective, they will call that a success.”

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