President Trump tuned in to Steve Bannon’s interview on “60 Minutes” and thought his former top strategist gave a “forceful defense of him,” it was revealed in a report.
“He thought that it was an articulate and forceful defense of him, as well as a very strong and very intelligent positioning of some of the core issues of the administration,” the Washington Post reported, citing a person close to the president.
In Sunday’s interview on the CBS news show, Bannon, who left the White House last month, said he warned Trump that he shouldn’t fire FBI Director James Comey, said the Republican Party was heading toward “civil war” after the president ended the Obama-era program that protected young undocumented immigrants from deportation and called out GOP leadership for not being able to repeal ObamaCare.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday downplayed much of Bannon’s comments.
“I think that Steve always likes to speak in kind of the most extreme measures,” she said during a news briefing in the White House.
She also defended the president’s decision to fire Comey, who was then spearheading an investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election and any connection to the Trump campaign.
“The president was right in firing Director Comey,” Sanders said. “Since the director’s firing, we have learned new information about his conduct that only provided further justification for that firing.”