Trump, Bannon Clash Over Book; Trump Says he 'Lost His Mind'

PHOTO: Donald Trump and Steve Bannon.

The new year is starting with numerous clashes between Trump and his own officials as well as foreign governments. The focus of this article? The now-declared rivalry between the President and the former White House chief strategist; Steve Bannon.

According to a soon-to-be-released book named "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Presidency" written by Michael Wolff the former-WH chief strategist, Steve Bannon, of which almost always had a quite chummy relationship with Trump (even though he was always vocal about his hatred for the President's son-in-law and daughter Ivanka and Jared), was disapproving of how the Trump camp handled the Trump Tower meeting back in June of 2016.

The Trump Tower meeting had been organized by Russian government officials (or claimed to have been) with Trump's son-in-law Donald Trump Jr. in hopes and with the objective of trying to find 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton. According to news of the outcome of that meeting; nothing new was proposed by the Russian lawyer.

Steve Bannon called the meeting by Donald Trump Jr. in 2016 'treasonous' and 'unpatriotic'. He also speculated and suggested that President Trump himself had 'most likely' been involved in the meeting, even amid Don Jr.'s denials of that. He mentioned that Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law, is also involved in some "greasy" business that could end up with someone charging him for money laundering.

Mr. Bannon also called out Trump for a second time on his knowledge of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting; saying that there's a 'zero chance' that the President wasn't aware of his son's attempts to gather dirt in a 'treasonous fashion' from Russian officials in order to damage Trump's political opponent at the time; Hillary Clinton.

The former chief strategist casted doubt on the legality of the meeting as well, even after Don Jr. pitched his attempts to make the meeting seem like a 'business meeting' to get information on their opponent; saying it was ridiculous that they hadn't called and informed the FBI immediately before making any action with the Russians.

President Trump responded to the criticism by Steve Bannon in the meeting with such anger that it really shocked the entire political world. With an official Presidential statement, not a tweet, Donald Trump destroyed Bannon's pride.

"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind" a part of the statement read. "Steve doesn't represent my base - he's only in it for himself."

He also accused Bannon of leaking false information to media sources in effort to make his person seem more relevant to his said-so position in the White House. "[He was] leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was, it's the only thing he did well" the President slammed.

All the meanwhile Bannon's excerpts of his interviews in Wolff's book also showed that he said that Don Jr. would be 'cracked like an egg on nation TV' by Mueller's probe. He also accused the Trump campaign of not wanting to win the Presidency; accusing Melania Trump of 'crying - not of joy' when the election results were announced.

The office of the First Lady of the United States, in a rarely made statement revolving around breaking political news, mentioned that they were angry with Bannon's statements. They didn't deny anything directly; but slammed Michael Wolff's book as 'obviously' going to be placed on the fiction categories section.

Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, said that the White House's position on Bannon's statements made in the book as 'disgusting' and stated that the President's views on the developments were that they are all 'totally fabricated'.

President Trump, in his 4-paragraph official address regarding the Bannon excerpts from Michael Wolff's book, he also slammed Bannon for costing the G.O.P. Senate seat for Alabama after the controversial Bannon figure backed and defended accused child molester Roy Moore for Senate.