Former presidential adviser Steve Bannon has stepped down as executive chairman of Breitbart News, after a new book revealed comments he made that were critical of the president and his family.
Breitbart, a right-wing populist website that often offers flattery of the Trump administration, announced the news on Tuesday, saying it would work with Bannon to ensure a “smooth and orderly transition.”
“I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform,” Bannon said in a statement on the site.
“Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish,” Breitbart CEO Larry Solov said in a statement.
Bannon, who left his White House post as the president’s chief strategist in August to return to his position at Breitbart, had a very public falling out with President Trump after he was quoted in a new book criticizing members of Trump’s family and inner circle.
In Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff, Bannon slammed the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign.
Bannon reportedly called the decision to take the meeting “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
After the comments came to light, Trump severed all ties with Bannon, blasting him in a statement and saying that Bannon — long thought to be the architect behind the Trump campaign’s appeals to the alt-right and to the politics of racial and economic resentment — deserved no credit for helping Trump win the presidency.
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” Trump said in that statement. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.”
Fox News notes that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked last week if Breitbart should sever ties with Bannon, to which she responded: “I certainly think it’s something they should consider and look at.”
Bannon’s departure from Breitbart leaves him temporarily without a major media platform from which to lodge a populist campaign. When he initially left his post in the Trump administration, Bannon had said he felt he could be more effective in fighting for the president’s political agenda — a campaign that would essentially declare all-out war against the media, corporate America, and the Washington political establishment — outside of the White House.
Federal agencies under the Trump administration have flagged hundreds of words to avoid in official government memos, public-facing websites, and informational materials.
Government agencies are seeking to comply with a President Trump executive order seeking to rid the government of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, and any programs or initiatives that conservatives decry as "woke," including those that focus on racial and cultural identity, LGBTQ identity, and the idea of "equity" rather than equality.
The list appeared in government memos and agency guidance, ordering the removal of the words from government websites, internal communications, and from written or printed materials.
Several Black faith leaders are urging members of their congregations to boycott Target in protest of the company's decision to scuttle its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The retail giant joined a host of other corporations in dropping pro-diversity programs and initiatives in response to threatened boycotts by conservatives and a larger backlash against so-called "wokeness" in the wake of Donald Trump's election to the presidency.
Jamal-Harrison Bryant, the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, sparked the calls for the most recent boycott.
Donald Trump has targeted yet another law firm for taking up cases challenging his administration's anti-transgender policies and for formerly employing a prosecutor involved in a special counsel investigation of his 2016 campaign.
In an executive order, President Trump stripped lawyers from Jenner & Block LLP of security clearances, barred them from entering federal buildings (which could include, in some cases, federal courthouses), and pressured federal contracting agencies to terminate any existing contracts for services that they have with the law firm.
The order declares that Jenner & Block's actions on behalf of its clients are a threat to national security, undermine U.S. interests, and conduct "harmful activity" through their pro bono work.
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