Trump demotes the hardline Steve Bannon

President Trump removed senior advisor Steve Bannon from the National Security Council.   Membership is usually reserved for high-level military officers, intelligence experts, and cabinet members, so the appointment of  Bannon, the former editor of Breitbart News, had been controversial.

Bannon has been associated, perhaps unfairly, with the alt.right and has been a target of criticism for his allegedly extremist views.

President Trump’s decision to remove chief strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council’s principals committee suggests a potentially significant change in the power balance among the four top White House advisers.

Bannon’s placement on the principals committee at the start of the Trump administration drew criticism not only from Democrats but also from many Republicans and prominent members of the intelligence community. The idea that Bannon, who, prior to his hiring as the chief political strategist to Trump’s campaign, had been the CEO of a conservative news website, would sit on a committee typically reserved only for the upper echelon of the military, raised questions about the scope of his influence within the White House.

It was part of a broader ascension of Bannon within the West Wing; he was widely regarded in the early days of the administration as a first among equals in a group that included chief of staff Reince Priebus, counselor Kellyanne Conway and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

That ascension has clearly faltered. The removal of Bannon from the NSC comes in the wake of a series of other moves — most notably the arrival of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, in the West Wing — that suggest that the president is moving away (at least for the moment) from the more hard-line ideological bent of Bannon.

“I always believed Steve would be first senior adviser to leave the White House,” said one former Trump aide granted anonymity to speak candidly. “He’s an ideologue. Trump is not. He has to get frustrated.”

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