President Donald Trump responded personally to his former chief strategist Steve Bannon’s comments about his family members Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.
The statement was released to reporters by press secretary Sarah Sanders prior to the White House press briefing.
The president unleashed a torrent of accusations against Bannon, accusing him of losing his mind after leaving the White House, and having very little to do with his presidency.
Trump also taunted Bannon for supporting Republican senate candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race and losing to the Democrat.
“Steve doesn’t represent my base—he’s only in it for himself,” Trump said.
The president also accused Bannon for leaking false information to the media about his influence and importance and accused him of trying to burn down his MAGA agenda.
Full text below:
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 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.
Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. 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.
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. It is the only thing he does well. 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.
We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.
After leaving the White House, Bannon returned to Breitbart News as chairman and the host of the radio show Breitbart News Daily on Sirius/XM Patriot.