Steve Bannon backtracks on ‘treason’ claims

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has said remarks in which he appeared to call Donald Trump Jr “treasonous” were not directed at the US president’s son.

In a statement, he said Trump Jr is “both a patriot and a good man” and the remark, which appears in Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, was directed towards the President’s former campaign chief.

“My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate," Bannon said. "He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends.”

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Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman at the time of the meeting, has since been indicted on money laundering charges by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation.

CNN says the fallout from the comments, which were published last week, has prompted Trump to call on “friends and allies to choose between him and Bannon”, as the rift between the pair continues to widen. According to the BBC, Bannon has lost the main financial backer of his conservative Breitbart website, heiress Rebekah Mercer, who “cut off Bannon from funding following his remarks to Wolff”.

The President spent the following days publicly attacking Bannon, dubbing him “Sloppy Steve” in a series of tweets.

“Nowhere in his statement on Sunday did [Bannon] actually say he was sorry,” says The New York Times. “But the turn of events represented a stunning reversal of fortune for a man who once... reported only to the president himself.”