Stephen Bannon believes he was so central to the Donald Trump presidency that things definitely won’t be the same now that he’s gone. In fact, his departure as White House chief strategist means the beginning of a new phase for the administration. “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon told the Weekly Standard. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”
Yet that doesn’t mean the departed strategist will suddenly turn into an opponent of the president. Quite the opposite. “If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents—on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,” Bannon told Bloomberg News.
Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to thank Bannon “for his service” noting that “he came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton—it was great! Thanks S”. It was the first time the president commented on Bannon’s departure.
Bannon insisted that his leaving the White House meant that the big priorities he had been pushing since before Trump won the presidency are unlikely to become a reality. “Now, it’s gonna be Trump,” Bannon said. “The path forward on things like economic nationalism and immigration, and his ability to kind of move freely … I just think his ability to get anything done—particularly the bigger things, like the wall, the bigger, broader things that we fought for, it’s just gonna be that much harder.” Who does he blame? To no one’s surprise, “it’s the Republican establishment.” And now that Bannon is gone that establishment will “try to moderate him.”
Bannon, however, won’t be going quietly and says now he has suddenly been freed of constraints that prevented him from being his real self. “I feel jacked up,” he says. “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a fuckin machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.” Bannon was back at Breitbart Friday and even headed up the editorial meeting.
The departing strategist also insists his departure was voluntary and coincided with his one-year anniversary of joining the Trump campaign. “On August 7th , I talked to [Chief of Staff John] Kelly and to the president, and I told them that my resignation would be effective the following Monday, on the 14th,” he said. “I’d always planned on spending one year. General Kelly has brought in a great new system, but I said it would be best. I want to get back to Breitbart.”
