Though the news has recently treated Steve Bannon as if he’s on the ropes, Bannon claimed Wednesday that he’s putting his people into office across multiple departments, while his opponents in the Trump regime are quivering in fear of his power.
[Bannon] minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize his rivals at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. “They’re wetting themselves,” he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense.
In an interview with Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect, Bannon laughed over the chaos and infighting within the Trump regime and didn’t shy away from going after officials by name.
“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.”
Jobs in the Trump White House are surely found on one of the lower bolgias of Hell. Not only is there the prospect of working for a racist, paranoid, corrupt leader who needs constant reassurance that he’s not objectively awful (he is), the Worst Wing seems to be filled with factions intent on backstabbing, frontstabbing, sidestabbing … basically just stabbing their fellow workers in every way possible.
Bannon clearly feels that he’s still the lord of this pocket Inferno, he’s the one pulling strings, setting agendas, and driving the narrative. He was removed from the National Security Council in April, is now working from a “temporary office” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and was notably not among those who went with Trump on his extended “working vacation.” But that doesn’t mean he’s being any less obnoxious.
Bannon’s openly bragging interview, in which he disagreed with Trump about strategy in North Korea and attacked multiple departments within Trump’s regime, seems surprising in the face of recent reports that Bannon was not just on the outs with Trump, but possibly on his way out the door completely.
If President Trump is considering whether to fire Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, as has been rumored for weeks, Mr. Bannon just gave him several new reasons.
The shot Bannon levied at State Department diplomat Susan Thornton isn’t going unanswered.
So add Tillerson vs. Bannon to the soap opera level conflicts within the Trump regime. None of which will likely matter, because no one is more afraid to take action that Donald Trump.