Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggests Breitbart should 'certainly' consider cutting ties with Steve Bannon

Screenshot/White House

Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

• White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested that Breitbart cut ties with Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist.
• The suggestion came after President Donald Trump blasted Bannon over comments attributed to the Breitbart executive in an upcoming book.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested during Thursday's press briefing that Breitbart News should consider cutting ties with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

The comments came a day after excerpts from Michael Wolff's upcoming book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," were published in various major media outlets. In those excerpts, Bannon pilloried President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his daughter Ivanka Trump. The president responded with a scorched-earth statement completely distancing himself from his former top aide.

Sanders was asked by a reporter, who noted that the White House had called on ESPN to fire Jamele Hill after she made comments critical of the president, whether Breitbart should part ways with Bannon.

"I certainly think it should be something that they look at," she said.

The possibility of a separation between Breitbart and Bannon, who returned to the news site after departing the White House in August, has gained traction, even as Bannon praised Trump on a Breitbart radio program following the clash. Already, Bannon's major billionaire backers, the Mercer family, cut ties with the media executive.

Vanity Fair's Tina Nguyen reported Thursday that there is "a full-fledged outside push for" Breitbart's owners, Larry Solov, Susie Breitbart, and the Mercers, "to pull rank and fire Bannon."