Karl Rove, a former senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, said Thursday that chief strategist Steve Bannon only hurt the Trump White House, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled “Good riddance to Steve Bannon.”
“The White House and the country are better off with Mr. Bannon back at the website he described last year as ‘the platform for the alt-right,'” Rove wrote. “He will do less damage there than in the West Wing. Still, week after week, the nation finds itself in the same divided and chaotic place. If President Trump hopes to advance his agenda, he must start providing focus, discipline and persuasion. He’s shown little ability to do this thus far, and so his presidency is stumbling badly.”
“Mr. Bannon is not the first staffer to believe the White House agenda must mirror his own,” Rove wrote. “But no other aide in memory has had such grandiose or destructive plans for trying to remain in charge after being shown the door.”
Bannon served as a White House chief strategist for the first eight months of the Trump administration, but left his job there Friday after months of rumors he would be fired.
Hours after departing the White House, Breitbart News announced Bannon would return as executive chairman. Bannon suggested he welcomed the return to Breitbart, saying he can “fight better on the outside” and promising to “crush the opposition.”
But Rove cast doubt over Bannon’s ability to follow through on his promise.
“Just as before, one of Mr. Bannon’s principal aims will be replacing the GOP congressional leadership by supporting populist primary challengers. But last year his attempted political hit on House Speaker Paul Ryan — for which he recruited a primary challenger and pummeled the speaker daily through Breitbart news stories — ended with Mr. Ryan winning 84 percent of the primary vote. Some ‘f—— machine,'” Rove wrote, referencing Bannon’s claim he built a “fucking machine” at Breitbart.
Rove went on to offer several pieces of advice to the White House and Trump, namely to stop attacks on fellow GOP lawmakers and learn that members have “their own convictions and constituencies” that may lead them to oppose a bill that has the president’s backing.
“Memo to the White House: The worst way to strengthen a president is publicly to blame his difficulties on allies,” he said. “The least effective way to pass an agenda is to threaten the president’s party in Congress.”
