President Trump Has Fired Steve Bannon As White House Chief Strategist

Steve Bannon has weathered multiple rounds of ousting rumors as White House chief strategist, most notably back in April when Trump grew antsy about all the attention a #PresidentBannon hash tag was receiving. Even SNL cast Bannon as the Grim Reaper, who manipulated all behind-the-scenes matters, especially regarding foreign policy. Yet this week, Trump responded to new reports of John Kelly’s desire to fire the former Breitbart head honcho by ominously stating, “We’ll see what happens with Steve Bannon.”

Well, now we know what is happening with Steve Bannon! After the Drudge Report published initial word that he’s out of a job, the New York Times confirmed the news in their report, via two Trump officials. However, it sounds like no one clued Bannon in before press time:

President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled White House chief strategist who helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election, according to two administration officials briefed on the discussion.

The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr. Bannon. The two administration officials cautioned that Mr. Trump is known to be averse to confrontation within his inner circle, and could decide to keep on Mr. Bannon for some time.

So, here’s a question — will Bannon go scorched earth or decide to stay classy on this development? Given the fact that he spent a good chunk of this week expressing confidence in his own job security, he’ll probably choose the former option. Not only that, but a Bannon source told the NY Times that he wanted the news to be framed as an early August resignation that Bannon — of his own accord — postponed because of the ongoing disaster regarding the president’s Charlottesville response. In other words, he’s definitely gonna be mad that this story is taking another turn.

After all, this morning saw a fresh gathering of puffed feathers from an “unfazed” Bannon, who was reportedly prepared to be celebrated as a “nationalist hero fired by the ‘globalists.'” Axios also reports that Bannon is ready to go “medieval” on his enemies, so get ready for that. And New York‘s Gabriel Sherman says Bannon has pronounced, “It’s now a Democrat White House” in light of his dismissal.

Bannon’s career demise has been further confirmed by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and CNN. It’s truly the end of an era, as this handy graphic explains.

https://twitter.com/WorldofIsaac/status/898596998697422853

And if you’re wondering how Breitbart might view this situation, the outlet’s White House correspondent and an editor have already (below) declared #War. (A ton of Internet reactions can also be viewed here.)

(Via Drudge Report, New York Times & Axios)