NEW BOOK: Steve Bannon mounted smear campaign against Jared Kushner
There is no love lost between Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor Jared Kushner and the ex-President’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Kushner describes Bannon as a “toxic” West Wing presence in his new book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir.
The former head of Breitbart and current War Room podcast host threatened to break the former president’s son-in-law “in half” and yelled at Kushner “Don’t f*ck with me,” the book alleges.
In 2017, The Daily Beast reported on the non-stop fighting between the two senior White House officials. Sources told the outlet that Bannon referred to Kushner as a “globalist” and a “cuck.”
“Steve thinks Jared is worse than a Democrat, basically,” an official close to Bannon told The Daily Beast. “[Steve] has a very specific vision for what he believes, and what he shares [ideologically] with Trump. And he has for a long time now seen [Jared] as a major obstacle to achieving that.”
Describing himself as “unprepared” for Bannon’s media campaign against him, the former President’s son-in-law wrote:
“Bannon single-handedly caused more problems for me than anyone else in my time in Washington. He probably leaked and lied about me more than everyone else combined. He played dirty and dragged me into the mud of the Russia investigation,” according to CNN,
But the former strategist’s attempts to malign President Trump’s senior advisor would only take him so far.
In April 2017, Bannon was removed from the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, and in August he’d be fired altogether.
Kushner wasted no time gloating at the departure of his enemy from the West Wing, saying in his book, “At least I was able to get Steve Bannon fired. That partially saves the world from imminent disaster.”
He also joked with other White House officials about Bannon’s ouster and the slovenly advisor’s accomplishments – or lack thereof – while employed in the West Wing.
“Stephen Miller joked to Hope and me, ‘I have a plan to split up Steve Bannon’s extensive workload. Hope, you leak to Jonathan Swan at Axios. Jared, you call Mike Bender from the Wall Street Journal. I’ll call Jeremy Peters from the New York Times, and … we’re done.'”
Given a last-minute pardon by Trump for his Build the Wall scam, Bannon was recently found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with the House Select Committee’s investigation into the events leading up to and on January 6th.
Whatever torment Bannon and his allies heaped on Kushner, Mr. Ivanka Trump is no victim. The ex-president’s son-in-law profited over $600 million during his time in the White House, facilitated the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, and remains a friend of those responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Original reporting by Kaitlin Collins at CNN.
Follow Ty Ross on Twitter @cooltxchick
