President Trump fired back Wednesday at former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who said he thinks the president son Donald Trump Jr. will “crack like an egg” under the pressure of the ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling. Bannon’s criticism came ahead of the release of a new, unflattering book.
Trump says in the statement Wednesday that when Bannon was fired, “he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”
A new book by writer Michael Wolff offers a series of explosive revelations, including that Trump never expected to win the 2016 presidential race.
The ultra-conservative nationalist also described a now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between the president’s oldest son and a group of Russians during his father’s campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Wolff’s upcoming Washington tell-all, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” details the inner workings of the Trump White House, according to explosive excerpts published Wednesday by the Guardian.
The President fired back on Wednesday, claiming that Bannon was mentally unstable.
BREAKING: Trump responds to Steve Bannon’s criticisms in new book: `When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind’
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2018
Bannon helmed Trump’s campaign for the final three months before the 2016 election and was named as White House chief strategist after Trump took over the Oval Office.
His proximity to Trump’s inner circle lends credence to his predictions about the outcome of the Russia investigation.
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” the Breitbart News chief said.
Bannon, one of 200 people interviewed by Wolff, believes that special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin is focusing on money laundering and the finances of those closest to Trump, including his son and also his son-in-law.
Full text of Trump’s statement:
“You realize where this is going,” Bannon told Wolff. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose (senior prosecutor Andrew) Weissmann first and he is a money laundering guy. Their path to (expletive) Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner. … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”
The 2016 Trump Tower meeting included a Russian attorney promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, Trump Jr., Kushner and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Manafort has since been charged by Mueller with money laundering and other federal offenses for crimes that allegedly took place before he joined the Trump campaign.
Bannon, who has publicly voiced his distaste for Kushner in the past, also warned that recent reports of federal prosecutors subpoenaing records from Deutsche Bank could spell doom for both Trump Jr. and Kushner.
“It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner (expletive). The Kushner (expletive) is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me,” he told Wolff, according to the Guardian.
Trump denies any collusion with Russia and has repeatedly called Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt.”
Wolff’s book is set to be released next week.
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