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Steve Bannon, the ousted White House strategist, sat for an interview with CBS News’ Charlie Rose on Wednesday afternoon in Washington. The full interview will air Sunday on 60 Minutes with portions of it set to run Thursday on CBS This Morning.
It will be the first in-depth TV interview Bannon has given since he left the White House in August amid intense criticism over President Donald Trump’s “both sides” equivocating on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Bannon, the Breitbart News executive, was a key figure in Trump’s rise, stoking the nationalist tendencies that earned Trump a fervent following among the alt right. But he also at times overshadowed the president, an often fatal error in Trump land. Time magazine featured him on a February cover with the headline “The Great Manipulator.”
His exit coincided closely with John Kelly’s ascendance as Trump’s chief of staff. Kelly, a military veteran who previously ran the Department of Homeland Security, was known to have a very low tolerance for the chaotic, internecine workings of Trump’s inner circle. And Bannon was viewed as a key instigator in the internal battles that have shaped the White House.
Bannon also has been an object of media fascination. He had a seven-year career in the U.S. Navy before joining Goldman Sachs in the mergers and acquisitions department. He’s also produced more than a dozen films, many of them echoing his right wing ideology. But throughout the Trump campaign and administration he has remained a somewhat mercurial figure, giving very few interviews and almost no television interviews.
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