Posted on 01/07/2018 9:02:05 AM PST by Eddie01
Battered by the backlash from Michael Wolff's book, Steve Bannon is trying to make amends with the Trump family, providing a statement to Axios that expresses "regret" to President Trump and praises his son, Donald Trump Jr.
"Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around."
"My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama."
"President Trump was the only candidate that could have taken on and defeated the Clinton apparatus. I am the only person to date to conduct a global effort to preach the message of Trump and Trumpism; and remain ready to stand in the breech for this president's efforts to make America great again."
"My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was the defeat of 'the evil empire' and to making films about Reagan's war against the Soviets and Hillary Clinton's involvement in selling uranium to them."
"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr."
"Everything I have to say about the ridiculous nature of the Russian 'collusion' investigation I said on my 60 Minutes interview. There was no collusion and the investigation is a witch hunt."
"I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency." The backstory ... In Wolff's book, Bannon is quoted as saying of Mueller's prosecutors: "They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.'"
Be smart: While Bannon's statement may seem like a baby step, he's as stubborn as Trump when it comes to apologizing and admitting he has made a mistake. He views any concession as a sign of humiliating weakness.
What's next: Look for Don Jr. to accept the statement graciously. But Bannon has further to go with President Trump: Axios has learned that POTUS has said that he wants surrogates who appear for him on TV to "bury Steve."
Axios' Jonathan Swan reported last night: Trump has been working the phones over the past several days, telling allies they need to choose between him and Bannon. P.S. "Fake book" ... Trump tweets as he leaves Camp David: "I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author."
"Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!"
‘BanOn probably thought this missive would be the end of Trump.’
That is the key. The only explanation for the “grotesque,” [quoting Steve Miller] things Bannon said is that he thought the book would take Trump down. His goal was to, “burn it to the ground.”
When the plan failed, Bannon was left holding the bag. It’s the only explanation that fits all the known facts.
Bannon and Breitbart did do a good job rounding up the zero hedge and fringe crowd vote for Trump. It helped Trump win places like Wisconsin. It remains to be seen how enthusiastic those folks will be in 2020 for POTUS.
Is this just an opinion or is there corroborating evidence? How could Bannon have been significantly effective in WI yet so ineffective as to lose in deep red AL?
Roy Moore lost Alabama. Not Bannon. He only got 52% in his previous statewide race.
Then by the same token, why wasn’t it Trump who won WI? Why does Bannon get credit for the win while the candidate gets credit for the loss?
What more could one ask for? Some ass hat writes a purely fictional account of the Trump Administration, liberals buy it, like usual, and Bannon apologizes for giving a jack ass interview.
You and Jonah Goldberg have been watching too much pornography.
Richard Shelby told Moore’s voters to vote write-in. It made the difference.
I agree that Bannon has shot himself in the foot, but we do owe him some thanks for his efforts to get Trump elected. Perhaps his role was overestimated, perhaps not.
Maybe some part of Steve Bannon is frustrated that things are not changing at a faster or more visible pace. I think we are fortunate to be in the situation we are in, and need to proceed with caution. The swamp is everywhere and this is the only ground we hold, against a very large opposition.
If Bannon thinks we are in some position to push faster and bring down the whole apparatus, then he has a better imagination than most. I believe it will take all of two terms to bring this about.
As to the specifics of being wary of Russians, that part I can sympathize with. There is a tendency in some quarters to believe that we can make all sorts of deals and pacts with Russians because they, like us, are anti-globalist. I am not so sure on two different grounds. First of all, the new Russia is not that different from the old Russia which was the intellectual birthplace of globalism. Now that it does not suit Russian nationalism, the mood there has changed. But how deep is that change? The second reason for not trusting is that Russia remains deeply anti-American, that won’t go away overnight. There might be long-term opportunities to thaw that hostility, but for the time being, I would be very cautious with Russia. If that’s what Bannon thought the junior Trumps should have known, then he’s right about that. It’s not some colossal error that they made, just a naive approach to complicated questions. The President himself may not have been involved in it. He has not exactly logged dozens of hours on the Putin file since taking office, we probably all expected more than we’ve seen, and perhaps the President got the right advice or just knew from his own instincts to stay away. As to the Democrat-inspired fables about Russia, that is 99.9% fiction with tiny nuggets of truth that in the long run will mean nothing.
I wish Steve Bannon well. He may have made a bad mistake, perhaps ending his career in political life, but he’s on our side, I believe. He probably wants to see the swamp drained in his lifetime. Don’t you?
Bannon sitting on the bench with the Mooch
Read later.
It’s impossible to keep up with the cast of characters surrounding this president
Old thread. Such rat comments.
How did this year-and-a-half old thread end up on Front Page news?
no idea
Over to you Mike Allen.
Why did you ping this old thread, and how did it get moved to Front Page sidebar?
His Nationalism destroyed the GOP.
He’s always been nothing but a Leninist Communist
Fool me once...
Bannon’s part of the Goldman/Navy intel Deep State.
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