Donald Trump isn't planning a White House shakeup at the moment, meaning Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer are all safe for now. But hey, China was also gonna be a "currency manipulator" and NAFTA was toast and Trump was never gonna play a round of golf or leave Washington either. In fact, in the words of Trump himself, "I don't stand by anything." But caveats aside, Trump tells Bloomberg News that Bannon's not the white nationalist everyone says he is, he's just misunderstood.
President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed widespread reports that his administration is riven by discord, saying he is sticking by his polarizing chief strategist, Steve Bannon, calling him a “very decent guy” who is getting a “bad rap.”
Trump even revealed his own term for Bannon’s ideology: "alt-left," a play on Bannon’s ties to the nationalist conservative movement sometimes called the alt-right.
Why alt-left? “Bannon’s more of a libertarian than anything else, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said Monday during an interview with Bloomberg News in the Oval Office.
"Libertarian" as in, if you're a white supremacist that's totally fine by me and I'd like to give you a national platform on my news site. Roger, got it.
Trump also assures us that Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner are besties now.
"We have a lot of people that are getting along well," Trump said. "It’s coming out better now than it was, you know, for a while."
Wonder if that harmony includes all the voices in Trump's head too. Regardless, it sure is a relief to know that the White House is just humming now.
One White House official said last week that Trump’s top aides believe they have learned better the governing process and are now striving to keep various agency leaders and decision-makers in the loop so that no one feels shut out.
Especially when those agency heads have to implement the stuff the White House puts out. Novel.