Steve Bannon quits Breitbart News after breaking with Trump over explosive book
The exit of US President’s former chief strategist, who was abandoned by his conservative financial backers, represents a seismic shift for a website that he billed as ‘the platform for the alt-right’
Steve Bannon has stepped down as executive chairman of Breitbart News, the right-wing news organisation said on its website on Tuesday.
The announcement came after the former White House chief strategist was quoted in a book criticising President Donald Trump.
“Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions, and what he has helped us to accomplish,” Breitbart Chief Executive Larry Solov said in a statement on the website.
Bannon was a co-founder of Breitbart website, and corralled voters for Trump using it before the 2016 elections, during which he declared it “the platform for the alt-right”.
His departure from the site is the latest instalment in a saga that began when remarks attributed to Bannon were leaked during promotions for Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
Bannon derided Donald Trump Jnr and the president’s son-in-law-turned-adviser, Jared Kushner, as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for their meeting with Russian representatives claims Wolff, who says he has tapes of the conversations.
That didn’t sit well with Trump – who threatened Bannon with a lawsuit and claimed on Twitter that Bannon had “lost his mind”.