Steve Bannon is out as chief strategist to President Donald Trump, with multiple sources reporting that the commander in chief was "furious" over his loose-lipped interview with The American Prospect earlier this week.
Reports that Bannon has been on the outs with Trump have been brewing for months.
Here are six reasons that could have contributed to Bannon's firing:
1. He contradicted Trump on a military option in North Korea — According to Newsmax White House correspondent John Gizzi, who spoke with White House sources on Thursday and first reported that Bannon could be out over his Korea comments. Bannon's remarks "appeared to undermine the president’s gamesmanship using threats of a military option against the North Korean regime."
In his controversial American Prospect interview this week, Bannon said there is "no military solution" to dealing with North Korea's nuclear threats. The president, meanwhile, promised "fire and fury" should Kim Jong Un's regime attack Guam or continue its threats against the U.S.
2. Increased scrutiny after Charlottesville — Bannon has faced criticism for his ties to the so-called alt-right, especially in the days after violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists clashed with counter-protesters, leaving three people dead and at least 34 injured. Whether warranted or not, it may have been more drama that the Trump administration did not need this week.
3. Bannon appeared to push for a China trade war — Elsewhere in his unprompted American Prospect interview, Bannon addressed the U.S. being "at economic war" with China.
"The economic war with China is everything," he said. "And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover."
4. In-fighting — Instead of backing away from internal conflict inside the White House or at least pretending everyone was getting along, Bannon trashed Susan Thornton, acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the State Department, and chief economic adviser Gary Cohn publicly this week. He charged that senior White House officials were "wetting themselves" over changing U.S. trade strategy.
5. Fighting with family — Bannon bumped heads with Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner early on in the administration. The situation became bad enough to where Trump stepped in and ordered the two to sit down and work out their difference in April, according to Politico.
6. Loss of Republican support — Republican Congressman Peter King called for Bannon's ouster Thursday after Bannon suggested in the American Prospect interview that Democrats addressing race would be winning strategy for Trump. Bannon said in the interview that he hoped the Democrats would talk about race "every day."
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