President Trump’s decision to remove Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, came after a period of internal and external pressure to part ways with the controversial figure, and it was no coincidence that the move happened just a few weeks into the tenure of chief of staff John Kelly, White House aides and allies said.
Bannon served his last day in the administration on Friday.
Sources inside and outside the White House described Bannon’s ouster as the inevitable result of his enemies’ efforts to dispose of him, a feat that was made easier by the departure last month of his closest ally, former chief of staff Reince Priebus.
And while some cited Kelly’s arrival to the West Wing as the catalyst for Bannon’s exit, others said the opposition Bannon faced internally persuaded the president to dismiss him.
“I would say it is very unlikely that this decision was taken weeks ago, as has been reported,” a senior White House official told the Washington Examiner. “This was also not going to be a unilateral decision made by the chief of staff, but a decision that was taken by the president based upon those within the White House pressurizing the president to fire him.” The official suggested Bannon had a good working relationship with Kelly, noting it was Bannon’s advocacy that helped Kelly land the nomination to become secretary of Homeland Security.
Several people close to Bannon said other top White House aides had clashed with the chief strategist for months and actively worked to undermine him.
Bannon’s allies frequently refer to those aides — a group that includes Gary Cohn, Dina Powell, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump — as the “West Wing Democrats” or “globalists.”
Cohn, who many consider an internal opponent of Bannon, was the subject of reports on Thursday that he may soon resign over Trump’s recent comments about violence in Charlottesville, Va.
A White House aide told the Washington Examiner on Friday that the stories were “all speculation” that did not come from Trump’s economic adviser himself.
Bannon’s conservative allies expressed fear Friday that in the absence of Trump’s resident populist, the remaining senior staffers would not pursue proposals — like the border wall or decreased involvement in international conflicts — that Bannon championed during his tenure.
“This becomes a Democratic White House to us,” one Bannon ally said of the impending personnel change.
And others suggested both before and after Bannon’s departure became public that the onetime Breitbart chief, who is now returning to the site, could do more damage outside the White House than within it.
One person familiar with the situation said Bannon embarked on a two-day media blitz — during which he offered uncharacteristically candid remarks on North Korea, Confederate monuments and identity politics — in order to distract from controversy over the president’s response to the Charlottesville violence. That person described the move as an effort to “take a bullet” for Trump, regardless of the consequences.
But others said Kelly and Bannon operated on completely different wavelengths, as the former prefers structure and order and the latter sometimes worked outside the chain of command Kelly is hoping to build in the West Wing.
People close to the White House said that dynamic — coupled with Kelly’s alignment with national security adviser H.R. McMaster — contributed to Bannon’s ouster. And the president’s belief that Bannon helped form a public perception of himself as Trump’s political puppet master also led to the decision.
Bannon and McMaster sparred openly in recent weeks over what people close to the White House have described as long-simmering ideological tensions. While McMaster has pushed for increased troop levels in Afghanistan and has led the president away from tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement, Bannon has encouraged Trump to disentangle the U.S. from international conflicts and has long fought to void the Iran deal.
McMaster recently sought and obtained from Kelly permission to fire a national security aide considered close to Bannon in a move that increased friction between the two men.
A source close to the White House suggested Bannon may not be the last aide to go in a West Wing shake-up that has already seen the departures of press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Anthony Scaramucci, chief of staff Reince Priebus and press aide Michael Short.
Kelly was said to be reviewing the portfolios of the existing staff in an effort to streamline operations and formalize roles.
A common joke among people close to the White House emerged during that process about how Bannon didn’t actually have any job responsibilities despite being Trump’s chief strategist.
His expected return to Breitbart would bring his journey on the Trump train full circle, as he joined the presidential campaign almost exactly a year before leaving the White House.
One person close to Bannon said the outgoing Trump aide would likely turn up his website’s heat on the administration in areas where he felt the president was straying from his campaign platform.
“Winter is coming,” the person said, referencing a slogan from the HBO program “Game of Thrones.”
Bannon did not return a request for comment.
His exit turns control of the West Wing fully over to Kelly, a relative centrist. The chief strategist position was created when Trump, during the transition, struggled to choose between Priebus and Bannon for his chief of staff, so the strategist post became a way to give Bannon equal influence in the White House without placing the polarizing figure in the storied chief of staff role, where he would have to deal with Republican congressional leaders he had sharply criticized while at Breitbart.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s top policy adviser and speechwriter, remains a powerful voice inside the West Wing for positions on immigration policy and radical Islam, among other things, that Bannon prioritized. Although he is viewed as the natural heir to Bannon’s status as the in-house nationalist, people familiar with the workings of the White House say he has made efforts to build bridges with Kushner and other centrist aides that could limit his ability to inherit Bannon’s bomb-throwing playbook.
A person close to the White House said the reality of Bannon’s departure was a middle ground between Kelly and Trump forcing him out and him leaving due to frustration with the inherent restrictions of working in government.
“There’s a new sheriff in town,” the person said of Kelly.
As he wrapped up his final day in the administration, Bannon told Joshua Green, an author who wrote a recent book about him, that he plans to “go to war” for Trump against his enemies outside the White House.
