WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has declared: “I am my own strategist.” That would seem to bode poorly for his actual strategist, Steve Bannon.
And Trump now appears to be publicly distancing himself.
In an interview with The New York Post, the president said “I like Steve” and called his adviser “a good guy” — but one who wasn’t really all that involved with his winning election campaign. He said his warring senior officials, including Bannon, must “straighten it out or I will.” In a second interview with The Wall Street Journal, he dismissively called Bannon “a guy who works for me.”
The unusual public, lukewarm support from the boss has Bannon’s friends and advisers worried he will soon be out of a job. But shedding Bannon would be no simple staff shake-up. More than any other member of Trump’s orbit, the former media executive and radio host, known as a bare-knuckle political fighter, has a following all his own. He is viewed by many in the conservative core as the ideological backbone in a White House run by a president who boasts of his flexibility.
“I think it’s important to recognize the value of the base. It’s important to recognize the base sees their advocate in Steve Bannon,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who has known the president for decades.
Bannon, more than any other White House aide, speaks the language of Trump’s populist base. He spoke in February of “our sovereignty” as a country and about the new administration’s aim for “deconstruction of the administrative state.” He also helped write many of Trump’s hardest-line speeches.
“It would be a terrible signal if Trump were to either force Bannon out or let him go because he is the face of the national populism that inspired a lot of voters to vote for Trump,” said Ned Ryun, founder of the conservative group American Majority and a longtime friend of Bannon’s.
That view cuts to the core of why Bannon might be on the outs at the White House.
He’s feuded with Trump’s son-in-law-turned-senior-adviser, Jared Kushner, and with economic chief Gary Cohn. Both are New Yorkers who have voted for Democrats. Cohn, the former No. 2 at Goldman Sachs, and fellow Goldman executive Dina Powell, one of Trump’s top national security advisers, have been gaining favor with the president.
Last week, Trump removed Bannon from the National Security Council, while Powell appears to be ascendant.
The president’s irritation with Bannon could have roots in the adviser’s high profile in the early days of the administration. Democrats waged a campaign to brand him as “President Bannon.” He appeared on Time magazine’s cover and was portrayed on “Saturday Night Live” as the Grim Reaper pulling the president’s strings.