Posted on August 15, 2017

Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch has ‘Repeatedly Urged Donald Trump to Fire Steve Bannon as His White House Chief Strategist’

Regina Graham, Daily Mail, August 15, 2017

Trump and Bannon

Donald Trump talks to Steve Bannon (Credit Image: © Carlos Barria/Reuters via ZUMA Press)

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has reportedly urged President Donald Trump that he needs to fire White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

The CEO of Fox News has repeatedly told the president to get rid of Bannon, according to the New York Times.

Murdoch made his comments about Bannon during dinner with Trump, new White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump’s private golf club on August 4, the Times reported.

During the dinner, Trump vented about his frustrations with Bannon, the former chair of Breitbart News, and did not push back against the advice from Murdoch, a source told the Times.

The 71-year-old president has reportedly not met face-to-face with Bannon for over a week.

In addition, Kelly has told the top staff in the White House that he won’t tolerate Bannon’s ‘shadowland machinations,’ according to several current and former aides who spoke with the Times.

During an appearance on CBS’ Late Show with Stephen Colbert, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci discussed if he thought Bannon was ‘a leaker’ in the White House.

‘I said he was, and I obviously got caught on tape saying he was, so I have no problem saying that,’ Scaramucci replied.

‘If it was up to me, he would be gone,’ continued Scaramucci. ‘But it’s not up to me.’

Asked if he believed Bannon was a white supremacist, Scaramucci replied: ‘I don’t think he’s a white supremacist though I’ve never asked him.

‘What I don’t like is the toleration of it, for me it’s something that should not be tolerated.’

This is not the first time Scaramucci expressed his feelings over Bannon, who previously called Breitbart a ‘platform for the alt-right’.

This weekend, Scaramucci blamed Bannon’s ideology for some of the president’s recent missteps, including Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.

The president initially condemned the Saturday incident as an ‘egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides – on many sides,’ a phrase that led many, including those at neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, to believe he was tacitly supporting racist whites.

But on Monday, under pressure from critics, Trump said that ‘racism is evil’ and described members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as ‘criminals and thugs.’

However, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for Trump to fire Bannon as many believe Bannon’s viewpoints reflect that of the ‘alt-right’ or white nationalists.

‘If the president is sincere about rejecting white supremacists, he should remove all doubt by firing Steve Bannon and the other alt-right white supremacist sympathizers in the White House,’ said Pelosi, D-Calif. in a statement Monday.

She described Bannon as ‘shameless enforcer of those un-American beliefs.’

Bannon has previously denied that his political beliefs are racist in interviews given shortly after Trump’s election win last year.

‘I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist,’ Bannon told The Hollywood Reporter in November.

He explained that his positions have been misinterpreted and are pegged to economic policies intended to assist the ‘American working class.’