Steve Bannon’s crazed final White House days: “mood swings” and “crumbling physical appearance”
Now that Donald Trump has fired his White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, the fallout is coming quickly from both sides. Bannon is already using his site Breitbart to launch vicious personal attacks against Trump’s top advisers and even against Trump himself. But Bannon’s enemies are also on the attack, painting his final days in the White House as having been chaotic and unstable at best.
Bannon was indeed fired in late July, according to a new expose from the New York Times (link), but he had negotiated an August 14th exit date. Then after the Charlottesville attack – as I had speculated at the time – he asked to stay on a bit longer so that it wouldn’t appear he was being fired for being a racist. Bannon was indeed told that he could stay on until Labor Day, until he began running his mouth to a journalist, which got him the immediate hook. But what stands out the most is how Bannon’s physical and psychological condition is being described in his final days.
Near the end of the NYT article comes this sentence: “Mr. Bannon’s physical appearance was crumbling, and his mood swings had become pronounced.” This is of course from the point of view of those still in the White House who wanted him gone. But it’s nonetheless a startling revelation. It paints Steve Bannon’s personality as having been every bit as unhinged as had long been suggested by his detractors. And as for the suggestion that his “physical appearance” was crumbling, it sounds like they’re describing a super villain who’s devolving into his true grotesque self.
In any case, Steve Bannon may be getting the last laugh. Early on Sunday his site Breitbart published an article which essentially accused Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster of being a terrorist sympathizer (link). Then later in the day it was followed up by an article which questioned Trump’s mental health (link). And this is only day three.
