Steve Bannon is out as Trump’s chief strategist

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon, the combative, controversial and perennially rumpled chief strategist for President Donald Trump, has resigned in the latest staff shakeup at the White House.

New White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Bannon had agreed that Friday would be Bannon’s last day in the White House, according to a statement by Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

“We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.”

The 63-year-old Bannon had been on shaky ground for weeks and Trump declined to express confidence in him during an impromptu press conference Tuesday. In a rambling answer to a reporter’s question, Trump said Bannon was a friend, who came late to his 2016 campaign.

Bannon is not a racist, Trump added, as the media unfairly have painted him. “But we’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon” — words that savvy observers believed signalled Bannon’s end was near.

By Friday afternoon, he was out.

Thus ended a rocky week that had Trump arguing with himself over the nature of the Charlottesville protests that left a 32-year-old counter-protester and two state police officers dead.

Saturday, Trump faulted “many sides” for the violence. Monday he called out “the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups.” Then Tuesday, Trump was back blaming “both sides” – which set corporate leaders scurrying away from Trump’s presidential advisory boards and led many Democrats and Republicans to lambaste the president.

For Democrats, the removal of Bannon isn’t enough. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was “welcome news, but it doesn’t disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance.”

The Council for American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad also welcomed Bannon’s removal from a position he “never should have been given,” and called for the removal of like-minded staffers Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser, and Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president.

Few Republican officials or members of Congress had anything to say about Bannon’s departure. However, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who is close to Bannon, said Trump’s base could revolt. “With Steve Bannon gone, what’s left of the conservative core in the West Wing? Who’s going to carry out the Trump agenda?” he asked in an interview.

“This looks like a purging of conservatives,” King added. “The odds of him completing his campaign promises, even to the limit of his executive authority, have been diminished by this.”

Precarious footing

Early in the administration, Bannon’s high profile put him in precarious footing with a president who doesn’t like having to share magazine covers. As the voice in the White House that prodded Trump in the direction of the “alt-right,” Bannon was seen as the dispensable man.

The New York Times reported Monday that even before Charlottesville, Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch had urged Trump to fire the former executive chairman of conservative Breitbart News.

Calls for his scalp did not send Bannon into silence. To the contrary, he began giving interviews at unlikely venues. He contacted a reporter with the left-leaning The American Progress, and without stipulating that the conversation was off-the-record, berated his colleagues. Among other things, he said some were “wetting themselves” over a proposed complaint against Chinese trade practices.

Then Bannon called the Times and Washington Post.

Bannon’s freelancing brought to mind similar behavior by Trump’s former director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci. During his 10 days on the job, Scaramucci phoned Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker and let loose a barrage of f-bombs and unflattering descriptions of his palace-intrigue rivals.

“Under normal circumstances a senior White House adviser who gets quoted extensively when he’ s not supposed to be ends up being removed,” observed a Republican strategist who has worked with the White House.

Falling staff dominoes

The last month has boomed with the fall of staff dominoes at the White House. Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned when Trump named Scaramucci director of communications, a position Spicer also had filled.

Later, and also on a Friday afternoon, Trump fired his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and replaced him with Kelly. Within hours of being sworn into his new post, Kelly fired Scaramucci.

Less recognizable names also came and went. Mike Dubke resigned after serving three months as communications director. (This week the White House announced the new interim director will be 28-year-old Hope Hicks, who is credited with understanding what Trump wants when dealing with the press.)

Hours after Bannon’s departure was confirmed Friday by the White House, the former Hollywood producer and news executive returned to duty as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the pugilistic conservative website he helped guide before joining Trump’s campaign last August.

“The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow said in a release.

For his part, Bannon said in an interview with the Weekly Standard that he feels “jacked up.”

“Now I’m free,” he said. “I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition.”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or at 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter. The Washington Post contributed to this report.