‘HE LOST HIS MIND’
Donald Trump blasts ex-White House aide Steve Bannon after explosive new book accused Trump Jr of treason
DONALD Trump today launched a scathing attack on his former close aide Steve Bannon - claiming the ex-White House strategist has "lost his mind".
He hit out after Mr Bannon called Donald Trump Jr’s meeting with a group of Russians “treasonous” in excerpts from a bombshell book.
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Mr Trump is said to have stayed close to the influential right winger since he quit his White House job in August.
But the president issued a blistering statement this evening insisting: "Steve Bannon has nothing to do with my presidency.
"When he was fired, he not only lost his job - he lost his mind."
He claimed Mr Bannon, who joined his presidential campaign in August 2016, had nothing to do with his stunning election win over Hillary Clinton three months later.
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Mr Trump said: “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.
“Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country.”
And he blamed his former pal, boss of right wing news site Breitbart, for backing alleged child abuser Roy Moore in a Senate election in Alabama.
The White House statement went on: “Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans.
"Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.”
But speaking on Breitbart radio, Bannon today played down the spat, assuring one caller that “there’s no one we think higher than Donald Trump”.
He went on to blame the “left wing” media for stirring the conflict up.
Mr Bannon was quoted in a new book about the Trump presidency as saying that the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between Donald Jr and a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended the meeting.
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Mr Bannon reportedly told author Michael Wolff: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.”
His comments appear in the new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, excerpts of which were published online today.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders claimed: "This book is filled with false and misleading accounts from individuals who have no access or influence with the White House.
"Participating in a book that can only be described as trashy tabloid fiction exposes their sad desperate attempts at relevancy."
Mr Trump's outburst comes hours after he bragged on Twitter his "nuclear button is much bigger and more powerful" than Kim Jong-un's.
Steve Bannon describes a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr and Russians as treasonous and unpatriotic in his book
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