Tag: Breitbart News

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Steve Bannon OUT At Breitbart News

How far the self-perceived mighty can fall…

Former White House chief strategist and founding member of Breitbart News has been ousted from his position at the far-right leaning website.

Steve Bannon is out at far-right Breitbart News, the outlet confirmed Tuesday.

Bannon has served as executive chairman of Breitbart News since 2012 following founder Andrew Breitbart’s death.

From HuffPost:

Rumors of Bannon’s ouster from the conservative news outlet began Thursday, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the owners of the publication were debating Bannon’s future.

During a press briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Breitbart should consider firing Bannon.

“I certainly think that it’s something they should look at and consider,” she said.

Bannon’s exit comes after he feuded with President Donald Trump last week. The former executive was quoted saying that a 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., other Trump associates and a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower was “treasonous.”

“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers,” Bannon told Michael Wolff in an excerpt from Wolff’s new book, Fire and Fury.

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” Bannon added.

Rebekah Mercer, a major financial backer of Breitbart, recently distanced herself from Bannon in an interview with The Washington Post.

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Milo Yiannopolous “Resigns” From Breitbart

In light of his current “man/love/pedophilia” controversy, Milo Yiannopolous issued the above resignation from the alt-right website, Breitbart:

“Today, Milo Yiannopolous, senior editor at Breitbart News, has announced his resignation from the company.

“Breitbart News has stood by me when others caved. They have allowed me to carry conservative and libertarian ideas to communities that would otherwise never have heard them. They have been a significant factor in my success. I’m grateful for that freedom and for the friendships I forged there.

“I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone.

“When your friends have done right by you, you do right by them. For me, now, that means stepping aside so my colleagues at Breitbart can get back to the great work they do.”

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Trump Elevates Steve Bannon To National Security Council

Steve Bannon

This would have made bigger headlines yesterday were it not for the protests at airports over President Trump’s executive order on immigration.

This is a big deal.

From Business Insider:

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum Saturday that removed the nation’s top military and intelligence advisers as regular attendees of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, the interagency forum that deals with policy issues affecting national security.

The executive measure established Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon as a regular attendee, whereas the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence will be allowed to participate only “where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”

“The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history,” Republican Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

“The one person who is indispensable would be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in my view,” McCain added. “So it’s of concern, this ‘reorganization.'”

John Bellinger, an adjunct senior fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations and former legal adviser to the National Security Council, wrote on Saturday that the change is “unusual.”

“In the Bush administration, Karl Rove would not attend NSC meetings,” Bellinger said. “According to former Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, President Bush did not want to appear, especially to the military, to insert domestic politics into national security decision-making.”

With his permanent seat at the NSC meetings, Bannon has been elevated above the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, who was not offered an open invitation.

Remember that Steve Bannon has no experience in national security. He ran a white nationalist propaganda website until six months ago.

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Breitbart Rumored To Be Courting Billy Bush

Billy Bush (L) with Donald Trump (R)

Billy Bush could be going from radioactive to hot again after President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise upset on Election Day. A source tells Page Six that Breitbart News — the conservative Web site that’s headed by Trump’s top adviser Steve Bannon — is interested in luring Bush for its coverage of Hollywood.

“They are trying to recruit Billy Bush,” said a media insider of Breitbart. “They want to expand covering Hollywood in a big way — and think Billy would be perfect for the job.”

As part of his settlement, Bush is not under any “noncompete clause,” so he can go to a “Today” competitor. But while Breitbart currently includes its Big Hollywood blog about the entertainment industry, it lacks a TV network. With Trump’s victory, Bush could be embraced by alt-conservatives, although he’s likely still toxic to traditional Hollywood liberal outlets so soon after the election.

Either way, “Billy’s ego is big,” said a media insider. “He likes to be a TV star, and would want to go to a rival like ABC or CBS.” (Since his firing, the only gig that’s even been rumored for Bush was an appearance on “Dancing With the Stars,” which sources shot down.)

(from PageSix)

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Trouble Right Here In Trump City – Breitbart Exec Takes The Reins Of Trump Campaign In 2nd Shakeup

Stephen Bannon

Shakeups in political campaigns never mean things are going great.

So take the news that Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, becoming the new Trump campaign chief executive as a red flag.

We’ve heard rumblings that Trump’s crew couldn’t reign the Trumpster in, and we’ve also read numerous reports of the Donald resisting his approach to the campaign trail singing the classic, “I gotta be me.”

Cue the new team.

From the New York Times:

Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, will become the Republican campaign’s chief executive, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Mr. Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, will become the campaign manager.

Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman, will retain his title. But the staffing change, hammered out on Sunday and set to be formally announced Wednesday morning, was seen by some as a demotion for Mr. Manafort.

Conway told reporters Wednesday morning that the moves weren’t so much a “shakeup” as they are an “expansion” for this phase of the general election.

In related news, more stories continue to dog Paul Manafort about his financial connections and payments of unreported millions to Washington lobbying firms.

Donald Trump’s campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party’s efforts to influence U.S. policy.

The revelation, provided to The Associated Press by people directly knowledgeable about the effort, comes at a time when Trump has faced criticism for his friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It also casts new light on the business practices of campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Under federal law, U.S. lobbyists must declare publicly if they represent foreign leaders or their political parties and provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.