WASHINGTON — Steve Bannon is on the run, and his guerrilla war against the Republican establishment is on the verge of being extinguished after his political patron, Donald Trump, accused him Wednesday of having "lost his mind" and of being "only in it for himself."
In a stunning 266-word statement of rebuke against his former campaign aide and White House strategist, a clearly infuriated Trump echoed and expanded on the criticisms that establishment Republicans have leveled against Bannon since he took over the Trump campaign in August 2016.
The immediate impetus for Trump's broadside was the Wednesday publication of excerpts of a forthcoming book — Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" — in which Bannon is quoted as saying that a meeting between Russian emissaries and members of the Trump campaign, including the president's son Donald Jr. and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."