Wednesday on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” host Chuck Todd reacted to the excerpts from Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury” about former chief Trump White House chief strategist and Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon and speculated Bannon might run for president.
Todd opened the show saying, “Good evening, I’m Chuck Todd here in Washington, real non-fiction Washington, I swear. Welcome to MTP Daily and welcome to a five-alarm dumpster fire for the White House, or shall we call it Bannon’s rebellion. The Russia investigation has been blown open in dramatic fashion. Not by the ‘fake news media,’ not by the ‘deep state Justice Department,’ but by Steve Bannon! In response, the president is now trying to destroy Bannon.”
Todd continued, “President Trump went nuclear today on Bannon in ways both jaw-dropping and laughable and oddly, weirdly predictable as far as this president’s concerned. In a statement, the president said the following, ‘Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve doesn’t represent my base. He’s only in it for himself.’ Guys, Steve Bannon was the president’s chief political strategist and the Trump campaign’s chief executive, so it is beyond ludicrous to argue he has nothing to do with Mr. Trump or his presidency. But the White House made it clear again and again at this afternoon’s briefing, that statement is their story, and they’re just simply going to stick to it.”
Later in the segment, Todd said, “By the way, buried in here is—Steve Bannon for president. It isn’t — like, Bannon muses about it. I remember people laughing in 1991 when people floated Pat Buchanan. Nobody quite believed it. Anything is possible.”
Michael Steele said, “Anything is possible because Donald Trump created space for that to happen, and so Bannon knows that, and how he takes advantage of that is the play we’re seeing played out now.”
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