{"id":144363,"date":"2018-01-07T22:57:21","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T03:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=144363"},"modified":"2025-01-08T05:47:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T10:47:47","slug":"bannon-tries-to-make-amends-as-aides-defend-trumps-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/01\/07\/bannon-tries-to-make-amends-as-aides-defend-trumps-fitness\/","title":{"rendered":"Bannon tries to make amends as aides defend Trump’s fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Steve<\/a>
Steve Bannon speaking at the 2017 CPAC in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon is trying to make amends.<\/p>\n

Faced with a growing backlash, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist released a statement Sunday reaffirming his support for the commander in chief and praising Trump’s eldest son as \u201cboth a patriot and a good man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bannon infuriated Trump with comments to author Michael Wolff describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York between Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as \u201ctreasonous\u201d and \u201cunpatriotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Bannon said Sunday his description was aimed at former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who also attended the meeting, and not Trump’s son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president’s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency,\u201d Bannon said in the statement, first obtained by the news site Axios. Bannon said his support for Trump and his agenda was \u201cunwavering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours before the statement came out, administration officials used appearances on the Sunday news shows to rally behind Trump and try to undermine Wolff’s \u201cFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,\u201d which portrays the 45th president as a leader who doesn’t understand the weight of his office and whose competence is questioned by aides.<\/p>\n

Chief policy adviser Stephen Miller, in a combative appearance on CNN, described the book as \u201cnothing but a pile of trash through and through.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also criticized Bannon, who is quoted at length by Wolff, saying it was \u201ctragic and unfortunate\u201d that Bannon \u201cwould make these grotesque comments so out of touch with reality and obviously so vindictive.\u201d<\/p>\n

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Trump was \u201ccompletely fit\u201d to lead the country, pausing before answering because, he said on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d it was such \u201ca ludicrous question.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are from people who just have not accepted the fact that President Trump is the United States president and I’m sorry for them in that,\u201d said Pompeo, who gives Trump his regular intelligence briefings.<\/p>\n

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that she is at the White House once a week, and \u201cno one questions the stability of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m always amazed at the lengths people will go to, to lie for money and for power. This is like taking it to a whole new low,\u201d she told ABC’s \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Miller, \u201cthe portrayal of the president in the book is so contrary to reality, to the experience of those who work with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller’s interview on CNN’s \u201cState of the Union\u201d quickly grew heated, with Miller criticizing CNN’s coverage and moderator Jake Tapper pressing Miller to answer his questions and accusing him of speaking to only one viewer: Trump.<\/p>\n

Tapper abruptly ended the interview, saying: \u201cI think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after, Trump tweeted: \u201cJake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to defend his fitness for office, insisting he is \u201clike, really smart\u201d and, indeed, a \u201cvery stable genius.\u201d He pressed the case again on Sunday as he prepared to depart Camp David for the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President.<\/p>\n

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Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

Wolff’s book draws a derogatory portrait of Trump as an undisciplined man-child who didn’t actually want to win the White House and who spends his evenings eating cheeseburgers in bed, watching television and talking on the telephone to old friends.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The book also quotes Bannon and other prominent advisers as questioning the president’s competence.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, two days after the book’s release, WikiLeaks tweeted a link to an electronic image of the text. Posting the text of a book without permission would violate copyright restrictions and potentially damage sales. Yet, hours after WikiLeaks tweeted the link, \u201cFire and Fury\u201d remained No.<\/p>\n

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1 on Amazon’s lists of hardcover and ebook bestsellers.<\/p>\n

Chatter about Trump’s mental fitness for office has intensified in recent months on cable news shows and among Democrats in Congress.<\/p>\n

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders this past week called such suggestions \u201cdisgraceful and laughable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he was unfit, he probably wouldn’t be sitting there and wouldn’t have defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen,\u201d she said, calling him \u201can incredibly strong and good leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and some aides have attacked Wolff’s credibility, pointing to the fact that the book includes a number of factual errors and denying that the author had as much access as he claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he interviewed me for three hours in the White House. It didn’t exist, OK? It’s in his imagination,\u201d Trump said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Wolff told NBC on Sunday that \u201cI truly do not want to say the president is a liar,\u201d but that he had indeed spoken with Trump for about three hours during and since the campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly invoked Ronald Reagan, tweeting Sunday that the former president \u201chad the same problem and handled it well. So will I!\u201d<\/p>\n

Reagan died in 2004, at age 93, from pneumonia complicated by the Alzheimer’s disease that had progressively clouded his mind. At times when he was president, Reagan seemed forgetful and would lose his train of thought while talking.<\/p>\n

Doctors, however, said Alzheimer’s was not to blame, noting the disease was diagnosed years after he left office. Reagan announced his diagnosis in a letter to the American people in 1994, more than five years after leaving the White House.<\/p>\n

—-<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Hope Yen contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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