WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior aide to U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday assailed a new book rattling the White House, called his boss a genius and launched an attack on news coverage before a TV anchor urged him to calm down and cut off their interview.
Stephen K. Bannon, who is quoted in a new book calling Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russians in 2016 “treasonous,” tried to reverse his statements, saying that the younger Mr. Trump was “both a patriot and a good man.”
The explosive 12-minute interview on "State of the Union" devolved into a shouting match between Tapper and Miller, who accused the network of running "24 hours of negative anti-Trump hysterical coverage" and perpetuating falsehoods from Wolff's explosive new book, "Fire and Fury."
He said his reference to “treason” had not been aimed at the president’s son, but at another campaign official who attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Paul Manafort.
“My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate,” Mr. Bannon said, in a statement first reported by Axios. “He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.”
In the book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by Michael Wolff, Mr. Bannon said Mr. Trump had “lost his stuff,” and he described the meeting with Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr. and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as potentially treasonous.
on twitter trump said "Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!"