Not taking any breaks. Steve Bannon returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman after being ousted from the White House.
The news outlet announced his role in a press release on Friday, August 18, and President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, 63, chaired the outlet’s editorial meeting later that evening.
“The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” the publication’s editor-in-chief Alex Marlow said in a statement. “Breitbart gained an executive chairman with his finger on the pulse of the Trump agenda.”
The news comes hours after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Bannon’s exit from the administration. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,” she told CNN on Friday. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.
Two White House officials told The New York Times that Trump informed his senior aides of his decision to remove Bannon from his post and was mulling over how to dismiss him. A source close to the media executive countered this claim, telling the Times that Bannon submitted his resignation to the hotel magnate on August 7, but he did not immediately leave given the violence in Charlotesville, Virginia that took place last weekend.
The real estate mogul commented on Bannon’s future during a press conference at Trump Tower in NYC on Tuesday, August 15. “We’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon,” he told reporters at the time, adding that the former White House staffer is “not a racist” and a “friend.”
Bannon has yet to publicly comment on his new position.
