Culture

Steve Bannon Calls Trump’s Firing Of James Comey The Biggest Mistake In ‘Modern Political History’

When President Trump canned Steve Bannon as chief strategist, he immediately returned to Breitbart News. A few weeks later, the man who survived multiple rounds of firing rumors before actually being fired decided to talk to Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes. A few clips — including a jaw-dropping discussion about DACA and the Catholic Church — surfaced prior to airtime, but what took center stage on Sunday night were Bannon’s thoughts on Trump firing someone else … former FBI Director James Comey.

Bannon has so far refrained from directly trashing the president (aside from whatever he’s approving for publication at Breitbart), but he admits that Trump’s dismissal of Comey (who kept memos alleging that the president pressured him to stop investigating “good guy” Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia) did not present a good look. Rose first pressed Bannon on whether he approved of firing Comey at the time, and Bannon declined to answer, nor would he discuss Jared Kushner’s opinion on the matter. Rose then inquired whether reports were true that Bannon felt that Comey’s firing was the “biggest mistake in political history,” and Bannon caved a little:

“That probably would be too bombastic, even for me. But maybe [the biggest mistake in] modern political history.”

Despite his stance on the above issue, however, Bannon kinda remains on Team Trump. Or at least, he dislikes Trump less than he dislikes the Senate GOP, which (in this clip) he accuses of “trying to nullify the 2016 election” by undermining the president’s “populist, economic, nationalist” agenda. “It’s pretty obvious,” Bannon insisted. “It’s as obvious as night follows day.”

In this third clip, Bannon describes the idea of Trump campaign collusion with Russia as “a farce.” He also rejected the idea that Russians impacted the election. Rose repeated his question: “I didn’t say collusion. Did the Russians try to influence the election?” Bannon replied, “We’ll have to wait until the investigation is finished.” And oddly enough, Bannon appears to be one of the only Trump associates who was never accused of impropriety regarding Russian ties. Strange how that works, right?

(Via CBS News)