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.
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.
The U.S. State Department has ordered officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes attempting to come to the U.S. for sports competitions.
It is also ordering permanent visa bans against transgender people whose gender marker on their application doesn't match their assigned sex at birth.
A State Department cable obtained by The Guardian instructs visa officers to enforce a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the United States to refuse entry to any visa applicant who commits identity fraud or misrepresents who they are.
Unlike regular visa denials, anyone violating that section can be permanently refused entry to the United States, effectively constituting a lifelong ban.
President Donald Trump used his address to Congress on Tuesday, March 4, to attack transgender individuals, calling transgender identity a "lie" and railing against transgender athletes, gender-affirming care, and trans visibility in the military and more broadly within society.
At one point during the speech, Trump switched from speaking about a child who was diagnosed with cancer to claim his administration was protecting children from "toxic ideologies" in schools.
He brought up the story of January Littlejohn, a Florida anti-transgender activist who sued the Leon County School District in Tallahassee, Flordia, in 2021, alleging that her child's school had discussed restrooms and name change requests with the child, assisting her in "socially transitioning" without informing Littlejohn or her husband of their efforts.
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