Steve Bannon is going to the mat for Natalie Harp, and taking a swipe at President Donald Trump’s chief of staff in the process.
Bannon, a former White House chief strategist and host of the “War Room” podcast, told NBC News that Harp, one of Trump’s closest aides, is “hated by certain high-level elements on the White House staff,” and he said the same of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
“Otherwise these relentless, vicious, anonymous personal attacks [on them] would not continue unabated in the ‘legacy media,’” Bannon said. “It is long past time for Susie Wiles to step in and order it stopped — and stopped now.”
The comments appeared in a deep-diver NBC report on Pulte, who Trump advisers griped pitches the president “the weirdest ideas,” often on foam poster boards. A Republican congressional aide called Pulte “low-hanging fruit” for Democrats if they win Congress and predicted the GOP won’t stand in their way.
Bannon’s call for Wiles to intervene comes at a touchy moment for both the chief of staff and Harp.
Earlier this month, Politico Playbook reported that Harp printed out a previous Playbook newsletter about Wiles’ future and handed it to Trump, setting off what three people described as a “freakout.” The newsletter reported that Trump had been asking allies about replacing Wiles, and Playbook said he made more calls about her after reading it.
Trump dismissed the report as “TOTAL FAKE NEWS” and called Wiles “my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff.”
Harp, a special assistant and executive assistant to the president, is nicknamed the “human printer” by colleagues because she prints flattering articles and online comments for Trump. She has become a near-constant presence at his side, and Trump hailed her as a “perfect person” at an Oct. 5 rally in Nebraska.
Not everyone in Trump’s orbit is charmed. Advisers have described Harp as “poisonous,” according to The New York Times, and CNN has reported on her chaotic, erratic style. Still, journalist Chris Whipple said in September that Harp has a “hold” over Trump rivaling Wiles’ own, because she “speaks his language” and is “on his side unequivocally.”
Bannon, for his part, appears ready to make that fight public.