President Donald Trump took another shot at Steve Bannon on Thursday, gloating that his former White House chief strategist called him a “great man” after their rift Wednesday and telling reporters he doesn’t speak to Bannon anymore.
“I don’t know, he called me a great man last night, so you know, he obviously changed his tune pretty quick,” he told White House pool reporters Thursday morning, referring to supportive comments Bannon made of the president during his Breitbart radio show on Wednesday night.
“I don’t talk to him,” Trump then said, repeating the line twice more. “That’s just a misnomer.”
In interviews given for Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, first revealed by The Guardian on Wednesday, Bannon implied that Trump was aware of a meeting his son Donald Trump Jr. had with Russian operatives at Trump Tower in June 2016 and that the then-candidate met with the delegation himself. In the book, Bannon suggests the meetings were “treasonous,” “unpatriotic” and “bad shit.”
Shortly after the quotes came out, Trump sent Bannon a cease-and-desist letter and lambasted his former right-hand man, who left his White House role in August.
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,” Trump said Wednesday in a statement. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
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