Steve Bannon just got the Paul Manafort treatment
Donald Trump has been trying to push Steve Bannon toward the door for the past three weeks, for reasons known only to him. But now that Trump’s white supremacist supporters have committed a deadly terrorist attack against the United States, public pressure is mounting for Bannon to be fired because he’s a racist. In today’s speech, which was largely overshadowed by Trump’s own racist stances, he took a moment to say something telling about Bannon’s fate.
Back when Paul Manafort was first revealed to be in serious legal trouble early this year due to his sketchy financial connections to Russia, Donald Trump had his White House team take an interesting approach. Even though Manafort had been the Trump campaign chairman for real months, Trump’s team falsely claimed that Manafort had come on late and only been a part of the campaign for a short period of time.
When Trump spoke about Steve Bannon today, he tried to distance himself by referring to him as “Mr. Bannon.” He then went on to assert that Bannon arrived late to the campaign, thus trying to minimize the role he played. This is almost precisely, in some of the exact same words, how Trump tried throwing Manafort under the bus. So not only does this mean that Trump is fully ready to kick Bannon to the curb if he decides he means to, it may also be a good time to revisit how Trump’s harsh treatment of Manafort may have backfired on him.
It was Paul Manafort who told the Feds about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian government. Maybe Manafort would have sold out the Trumps to try to save himself one way or the other. But it’s possible Manafort ultimately decided to give up Trump Jr. in part due to how Trump Sr. treated him in the end. Steve Bannon, if he does get fired and scapegoated this week, could turn around and do the same to Trump or worse.
