Why is everyone so surprised by Steve Bannon’s comments in Michael Wolff’s new book?
When Steve was fired by the president back in August, he announced to the press publicly that the "Trump presidency is over."
This was a strange and perhaps delusional statement coming from a White House aide.
Five months later, the president would sign the most sweeping tax cut in American history.
President Donald Trump would also end 2017 with a record stock market, record consumer and business confidence indicators and record unemployment.
So how is the Trump presidency over?
For sure, the media loves to both beat up on Steve Bannon and inflate his influence.
In the past, they have called Bannon an anti-Semite and a racist.
I have defended Bannon on both charges. He is neither. I believe Steve Bannon is a patriot, though misguided on many issues and dangerously zealous on others.
Interestingly, his biggest fans are not conservatives like me but media liberals who have ballooned his influence.
If you watch CNN and MSNBC, you would think Steve Bannon and his website Breitbart are directing the Trump administration while leading the conservative movement.
The truth is Steve Bannon represents just a small fraction of the Republican party, folks who champion protectionism, isolationism and nativism.
If you believe the media spin, he also elected Donald Trump.
But the truth is quite different: Trump elected Trump.
I first met Steve Bannon around the same time I met Donald Trump, about 20 years ago.
I have seen their stars rise and now collide.
A friend called me today and said: "You predicted this earlier last year, Trump and Bannon would blow up together."
Yes, it was inevitable.
A little more history here for the unknowing.
Steve Bannon opposed Donald Trump for the crucial part of the Republican primary, backing Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Bannon had even pushed conservatives to demand Trump withdraw in September of 2015 after he said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was not a hero for having been captured as a POW.
Bannon did become a true Trump believer, but only after Trump won critical primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other states, assuring him of the nomination.
Bannon joined the Trump campaign late, in August of 2016, with just over two months left before election day.
Trump himself set the campaign strategy and people tell me that Jared Kushner organized the online media effort that put the president over the top in key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The facts are often different than the revisionist history we hear today.
For example, when I read bizarre claims made by Bannon that the president’s son, Don Jr. engaged in "treasonous" behavior, it makes me wonder what is really going on in Steve’s mind.
Don is a patriotic American who loves his country. Anyone who knows him knows that.
Bannon says Don should have immediately called the FBI when he was contacted by a Russian intermediary because it was "bad s**t."
Yet in the next breath Bannon tells author Wolff that provided the same information, he would have had a lawyer clandestinely meet the Russian source and publish their information on a site like Breitbart.
Say what?
When I read the stories and excerpts from Wolff’s book, it appears like a compilation of score settling.
Bannon, angry about being tossed from the White House, takes pot shots at the president, his family members, and White House aides he crossed swords with.
And Roger Ailes, the late head of Fox News, also is a key source of criticism of Trump.
Wolff forgets to note that Ailes and Fox News supported Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. over Trump through most of the Republican primary.
Ailes sought to torpedo Trump in the first crucial Republican presidential debate, approving a series of hit questions that were meant to end his presidential bid.
Ailes failed then and so will Bannon with these new revelations.
Trump knows from his long career – building a multibillion dollar business, hosting a hit primetime show for an unheard of 14 years, and winning the presidency with no political experience – that it doesn’t matter what Steve Bannon says.
It’s all about results.
Christopher Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax Media, Inc., one of the country's leading conservative news outlets. Read more Christopher Ruddy Insider articles — Click Here Now.