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Steve Bannon returned to Breitbart within hours of his White House ouster

Former White House strategist returns to the combative website he helped lead

Jeremy B. White
San Francisco
Friday 18 August 2017 19:57 EDT
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Donald Trump and then-strategist Steve Bannon, who returned to Breitbart the day after leaving the White House, on January 22, 2017
Donald Trump and then-strategist Steve Bannon, who returned to Breitbart the day after leaving the White House, on January 22, 2017 (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

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Within hours of leaving his post as an advisor to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon has returned to his former post as leader of the right-wing news website, Breitbart.

“The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow was quoted as saying in an article posted on the site. “Breitbart gained an executive chairman with his finger on the pulse of the Trump agenda.”

Mr Bannon hosted the organisation's evening editorial meeting - a remarkably swift turnaround for a man who began the day working for the White House.

The tone of Breitbart's articles and comments section echoes the populist anger that helped propel Mr Trump to the White House, with Mr Bannon guiding the way: combative, contemptuous of the Washington consensus on issues like global trade and at times veering into outright racial hostility.

In comments to reporters after his departure, Mr Bannon showed every intention of conducting an aggressive agenda to hold Mr Trump to his campaign agenda.

“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Mr Bannon told the conservative Weekly Standard website. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

Breitbart also has a history of pillorying Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative - those who supported an immigration overhaul, for example - and Mr Bannon predicted a "jailbreak" of moderate Republicans forsaking Mr Trump.

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