Bannon Is Slick, but McConnell Has Been Playing the Game Longer

Did I say it was a thud?

No, Trump didn’t just toss Steve Bannon under the bus. He tossed him under the bus, backed up over him, pulled forward and parked on him.

The shifty former White House chief strategist, Bannon, is back at the helm of his alt-right control center, Breitbart News, and has declared “war” on all incumbent Republican lawmakers, seeking to replace them with ones they find sufficiently loyal to their nationalist cause.

He specifically called out Mitch McConnell at this past weekend’s Values Voter Summit, saying they were cutting off his oxygen.

I can only imagine the mental reset going on in Bannon’s mind, when Trump came out, side-by-side with Mitch McConnell – his good friend – and said that they were on the same page.

Trump further said he’d look to talk Bannon out of his plans to go after incumbents.

When asked Monday following the lunch meeting about Bannon’s efforts, Trump said some of the people Bannon is looking at are “great people.”

“I like Steve a lot. Steve is doing what Steve thinks is the right thing,” Trump said.

“Some of the people that he may be looking at, I’m going to see if we talk him out of that, because frankly they’re great people.”

That was the equivalent of a firm tug on the dog’s leash, in order to bring him to heel.

Bannon has to learn it’s his place to do the sleazework, not to upstage his boss. Once the boss informs you that your services are no longer necessary (Bannon should have got that hint when he was ran out of the administration), you sit down and shut up.

Meanwhile, the king of the so-called establishment, Mitch McConnell, is proving that he knows which buttons to push to make Trump dance.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reportedly warned President Trump that former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon could be undermining the president’s agenda.

The Kentucky Republican warned that Bannon’s push to find challengers for GOP lawmakers could make it difficult to accomplish key agenda items, like tax reform, as some of the Republicans Bannon is targeting are key supporters.

Another bug put in Trump’s ear very likely was that if Bannon’s chosen fail and are ousted by Democrats, losing the GOP majority, then you can expect impeachment to be rushed to the table on day one of the new Democrat-controlled Senate.

And this massive war between Trump and the GOP?

“Maybe with the exception of a few, I have a fantastic relationship with the people in the Senate and Congress,” Trump said.

“I’m friends with most of them. I like and respect most of them, and I think they like and respect me. The Republican Party is very, very unified.”

Considering Trump has spent more time attacking other Republicans than any Democrats, I have to wonder when this great, unifying shift came to be.

I think the answer would be: When ‘ol Mitch got in his ear.

Steve, you’ve been dissed, and dismissed.

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