'He has to move away from that sort of Bannon-bart nonsense': Scaramucci repeatedly blasts Steve Bannon in multiple interviews
ABC
Scaramucci, who served as White House communications director for only 11 days, described Bannon as a "a snag on the president," arguing that the former head of Breitbart News was pulling Trump too far to the right and alienating moderate and independent voters, as well as Republicans in Congress.
"If the president really wants to execute that legislative agenda that I think is so promising for the American people, the lower-middle class people and the middle class people, then he has to move away from that sort of Bannon-bart nonsense," Scaramucci said in an interview with "This Week" on Sunday.
He continued: "The whole thing is nonsensical. It's not serving the president's interests. He's got to move more into the mainstream, he's got to be more into where the moderates are and the independents are, George, that love the president. And so if he does that, he'll have a very successful legislative agenda that he'll be able to execute. And if he doesn't do that, you're going to see inertia and you're going to see this resistance from more of the establishment senators that he needs to curry favor with."
Scaramucci also seemed to suggest that Bannon is leaking information to serve his own interests, and that Trump "knows what he's going to do with Steve Bannon."
On a separate livestream later, Scaramucci said he didn't know whether Bannon was a white supremacist, but said that his embrace of white nationalists was "inexcusable."
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
In an interview with NBC on Sunday, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster repeatedly refused to answer whether he would work with Bannon.
"Can you and Steve Bannon still work together in this White House or not?" NBC's Chuck Todd asked.
"I get to work together with a broad range of talented people and it is a privilege every day to enable the national security team," McMaster said, an answer he regurgitated three times as Todd continued to press him on his views of Bannon.
The responses from both Scaramucci and McMaster came the day after Axios reported that Trump suspected Bannon has been leaking damaging information about White House colleagues, and was weighing firing the political adviser.
Axios reported that Bannon was getting less time with the president, but noted that he'd survived past attempts to be pushed out of Trump's inner circle.
The political adviser has been a source of extreme controversy since joining Trump's campaign last summer. The former CEO of Breitbart News, Bannon is often credited with fanning Trump's pugilistic impulses, and boasted about his role in legitimizing the alt-right.
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