Breitbart chairman and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon would not pose as a favorable candidate for president, longtime Republican strategist and Trump confidant Roger Stone tells The Daily Caller.
“The idea of Steve Bannon as a candidate for President in 2020 is ludicrous,” Stone declared in a wide-ranging interview. The longtime Trump confidant agreed with reports that Bannon’s motive for speaking with Michael Wolff for his new book on the Trump administration was spurred on by the Breitbart chairman’s presidential ambitions.
Stone alleged that “some of [Bannon’s] people” have discussed the possibility of such a candidacy with him privately. “I just don’t think he’s a viable candidate,” he continued, declaring “the voters don’t know who Steve Bannon is and they don’t care.” A person close to Bannon decried Stone’s accusation as “total fake news” and that he “is not a politician.”
Bannon previously suggested to Vanity Fair in late December that he may run for the Oval Office, but only if Trump is impeached in the interim period. Bannon confidants pushed back strongly on that suggestion at the time.
The former White House chief strategist gave several disparaging remarks about President Donald Trump and his family to Wolff. These remarks include a personal insult of Ivanka Trump’s intelligence and suggestion that Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer offering information on then candidate Hillary Clinton was “treasonous.”
The remarks sparked an excoriating rebuke from Trump who declared in a Wednesday statement that Bannon “not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” and the feud between the two has dominated the news cycle for nearly two days.
Stone concurred with Trump that Bannon’s comments were likely spurred on by “pique” with Trump for being summarily fired calling the statements “disappointing.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went so far as to posit Thursday that Bannon should be fired as head of Breitbart. Breitbart’s board members also gathered Thursday to discuss exactly that, The Wall Street Journal reports.