Former Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has said that Steve Bannon's "head got so big" that former President Donald Trump had to fire him from his administration.
Kushner, the former president's son-in-law, spoke to The Hugh Hewitt Show about the administration and described Bannon's time as Trump's chief strategist, saying he'd been "knife-fighting with colleagues."
Bannon, former head of Breitbart News, was fired in August, 2017 just months after Trump assumed office in January that year. He was recently found guilty on charges of contempt of Congress for refusing a subpoena from the committee investigating January 6, 2021.
Kushner was promoting his new memoir Breaking History. Hugh Hewitt said that in the book, Bannon is portrayed as a "malignant figure."
Hewitt asked why former President Trump appears to be nicer to Bannon than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump has repeatedly slammed McConnell and called for him to be replaced.
Kushner told Hewitt on Friday that "Steve was actually with us very early."
"He was great on the campaign. He was a great partner and that. When it got to the White House, I think maybe the power got to his head a little bit or he just – he was being more of what he was," he said.
"It became very divisive," Kushner said. "He was undermining, he was knife-fighting with colleagues, and it just wasn't helping us implement the agenda. That was very unfortunate, but one thing I write about in the book is – I go through a lot of the different interpersonal dynamics – is that I ended up not defeating Steve."
"Steve really defeated himself, you know. His head got so big he was just doing all these crazy things, and the ultimately just, you know, like a suicide bomber, blew up," he said.
Newsweek has reached out to Steve Bannon for comment.
The Trump White House offered strong criticism of Bannon in 2018 after he was quoted in a book as saying Donald Trump Jr.'s 2016 meeting with a group of Russians was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."
"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency," former President Trump said in a statement at the time.
"When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party," he said.
Nonetheless, Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston referred to Bannon's relationshi to Trump in closing arguments during his trial in July.
"The defendant chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law," she said.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
