White House Slams Bannon for Leaking, False Information

Trump says in a statement released Wednesday that when Bannon was fired, "he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

A forthcoming book by writer Michael Wolff offers a series of explosive revelations, including that Trump never expected to win the 2016 presidential race.

Trump seemed most angry at comments made by Bannon, first reported by The Guardian, which obtained an early copy of the book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House."

The Guardian reported that Bannon described a Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."

An adaptation of the book published Wednesday in New York magazine says Trump believed his presidential nomination would boost his brand and deliver "untold opportunities."

The excerpt also says Trump Jr. told a friend that Trump looked as if he'd seen a ghost when it became clear he might win and described now-first lady Melania Trump as "in tears — and not of joy."

The book was based on more than 200 interviews, including conversations with the president and senior staff.

Trump's full statement:

Statement from the President of the United States

Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. 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 seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans.

Steve doesn't represent my base-he's only in it for himself.

Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.