Politics

Steve Bannon is planning his political comeback. But don’t tell him that; in Bannon’s eyes, he never really stopped being a combatant in the war against the elitist cabal. A few years ago, Bannon was a figure on the fringe of the American political spectrum. He may have commanded a loyal group of readers from his chair at Breitbart, but Steve Bannon only became a household name in America when then-candidate Donald Trump hired him in August 2016 to turn around a flailing and chaotic campaign. Trump was mocked as a laughing stock when Bannon came onboard.

Al Franken must be livid. After all, the failed screenwriter and former senator found himself chased out of office for far less serious allegations. He was accused of merely groping a few unsuspecting – and in one case, sleeping – women. Despite Good Feminist Gloria Steinem’s 90s declaration that Bill Clinton got a pass for one free grope from progressives, the DNC got their folks in line to force Franken’s resignation as allegation after allegation of lewd, forceful behavior unfolded. Yet somehow, Keith Ellison has dodged the bullet of some serious allegations of domestic abuse without so much as spilling his tea. For over 48 hours, the DNC remained silent as their Deputy Chair continued to campaign in the primary race for Minnesota’s Attorney General.

Donald Trump wants to bring Omarosa Manigault-Newman to heel. This morning he declared, “When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn't work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!" In tweeting this sentiment, Trump, who has been vehemently denying that he ever used the N-word, not only revived suspicions about his racism and misogyny, but also did Omarosa an enormous favour. Trump’s mission should have been to let the Omarosa saga peter out. Instead, he has further inflamed it. Today, her release of a tape in which three Trump campaign staffers apparently discuss how to try and spin his use of the N-word add heft to her contentions.

If there is one that American industry President Trump is helping to revive again, it’s book publishing. The latest author to profit from this trend is Omarosa Manigault-Newman whose Unhinged, a memoir of her brief time in the White House, will soon appear. Her account, if the advance excerpts are anything to go by, is not the usual morose lamentation of a true believer who complains that the boss failed to adhere to the policies he enunciated during the campaign. She doesn’t appear to have any ideological concerns about Trump.Instead, she has launched a purely personal attack on Trump. Omarosa’s account has all the fury of a betrayed lover.

The to-ing and fro-ing between President Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller over an interview is starting to look like Groundhog Day, the movie in which Bill Murray plays a weatherman who wakes up to the same day each morning. Today, the Trump team apparently rejected Mueller’s proposed parameter of questions and Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani observed, “We’re restating what we have been saying for months: It is time for the Office of Special Counsel to conclude its inquiry without further delay.” It could, he said, be Mueller’s “last, best chance” to speak with Trump.

Beware the intern. Rick Gates first met Paul Manafort in 1995 when he was an ambitious young man. Soon he ascended to become partners in crime with him. The end of the affair was abundantly on evidence in the trial of Manafort today, where Manafort's former deputy and Trump campaign official Gates took the stand to testify. Asked whether he had committed any crimes together with Manafort, he responded, “Yes.” At least he didn’t reply, “Da.” Manafort fixed Gates with a steely gaze, but it didn’t deter his old chum from explaining that they had established no less than 15 foreign bank accounts in an effort to avoid paying taxes to the U.S. government. He also divulged that he had pilfered several hundred thousand dollars from Manafort along the way.

What does it mean to be “presidential”? Literalists might say: “It’s whatever behaviour and affect a President exhibits.” But most of us will have something more rigorous in mind. To be “presidential” means to be dignified but masterly, simultaneously courteous yet decorous, friendly in a self-contained sort of way. The problem with this view is that so many presidents throughout history have violated it, from Andrew Jackson and his smash-up-the-china parties at the White House to Bill Clinton's novel deployment of cigars with Monica Lewinsky. Donald Trump recently mocked the traditional idea of being presidential, explaining that behaving in that way is “a lot easier than what I do.

It’s a tale of two Trump scions. Ivanka is trying to wall herself off from the old man whose behaviour often seems to border on madness. Don Junior, by contrast, is doubling down on the lunacy.On Thursday Ivanka declared that she disagreed with her father’s depiction of the media as the “enemy of the people”— a statement, incidentally, that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to make yesterday — and that she was “vehemently against” plucking migrant children from their parents as they crossed into the U.S. from Mexico. But she has not been able to avoid the taint of working for her father. The brand may be soiled beyond repair. Already she’s had to shutter her eponymous fashion line.

Only a few months ago he was an “honourable man.” Now honour has apparently been replaced by dishonour. “The man is a pathological manipulator, a liar,” Rudy Giuliani declared on “Fox News Sunday.” For good measure, he also referred to him as a “scoundrel.” Ooh la la. How long before he goes on to describe Michael Cohen as the Bill Sikes of Trumpworld? Today, Giuliani has once more entered the lists for Trump in an apparent attempt to sanitise the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 that had Kremlin-linked figures promising dirt on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Jr. declaring, “If it’s what you say I love it.” This meeting has become the fulcrum around which conspiracy theories about the Trump campaign revolve.