“Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at @BreitbartNews...maybe even better than ever before. Fake News needs the competition!” he wrote in the second.
Bannon spoke to The Washington Post the same day, saying “no administration in history has been so divided among itself about the direction about where it should go.”
Sept. 11, 2017: Bannon’s big interview
Bannon sat down with CBS's Rose in the biggest interview since his departure from the White House, discussing a wide range of issues.
\"I think I'm a street fighter. And by the way, I think that's why Donald Trump and I get along so well. Donald Trump's a fighter. Great counter puncher. Great counter puncher. He's a fighter,\" Bannon said of their similarities.
In the same interview, Bannon said the firing of FBI Director James Comey was the biggest mistake in \"modern political history.\"
During the daily press briefing, hours before the full interview aired, when asked whether Trump was still talking to Bannon, press secretary Sanders said, \"I know they’ve had one conversation but I don’t think anything beyond that since he left.\"
Sept. 12, 2017: Disputing their calls
Bannon spoke at a lunch in Hong Kong Sept. 12, saying at that point he still spoke with the president every two to three days, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sanders was asked about that comment during the daily press briefing that day, saying “I don’t think they speak, certainly not that frequently. I’m aware of like two conversations that they’ve had, and nothing beyond that.”
Oct. 16, 2017: Trump describes a rosy relationship
During a news conference in the Rose Garden, when asked whether he supported a plan suggested by Bannon and others not to support Republicans in the midterm elections who don't support the president's agenda, Trump said, \"Well, I have a very good relationship, as you know, with Steve Bannon. Steve has been a friend of mine for a long time. I like Steve a lot. Steve is doing what Steve thinks is the right thing.”
“Some of the people that he may be looking at, I’m going to see if we talk him out of that, because, frankly, they’re great people,\" Trump added.
Oct. 30, 2017: Weighing in on Mueller
Bannon reportedly called Trump and advised him to be more aggressive about slowing down special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians, according to three sources close to Bannon.
Bannon had been advocating for \"a much more aggressive legal approach, short of firing Mueller,\" a source close to Bannon told ABC News.
ABC News reached out to Bannon at the time, and he declined to comment.
Oct. 31, 2017: Sanders shoots it down
Sanders said at the daily press briefing that the president did not support defunding of the special counsel. She also added that he was happy with his legal team.
“I’m not sure what we would push back against since they’ve just come up with ways and shown more and more that there’s no connection between the Trump campaign and collusion with Russia,” Sanders said.
![\"PHOTO:](\"http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/trump-bannon-timeline-07-gty-jrl-180104_3x2_384.jpg\")
Scott Olson/Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: Former advisor to President Donald Trump and executive chairman of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, speaks at a campaign event for Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama Roy Moore on Sept. 25, 2017 in Fairhope, Alabama.
Nov. 17, 2017: Talking allegiances
When asked whether his relationship with Bannon would influence the president’s stance on Roy Moore, the Republican senate candidate in Alabama who had been accused of assaulting and harassing a number of young women decades earlier, Sanders said it would not.
“The president doesn’t have an allegiance to Steve Bannon. The President has an allegiance to the people of this country and nothing else,” Sanders said at the daily press briefing, adding that she was not “aware of” any conversations Trump had with Bannon about the Moore race.
Jan. 3, 2018: “Fire and Fury”
Excerpts from a book about the Trump administration were published, including some disparaging comments Bannon made about the Trump team and family.
At one point in the book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” Bannon is quoted as suggesting that Donald Trump Jr.’s controversial meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign in Trump Tower was potentially “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”
Trump issued a fiery and lengthy statement in response, slamming Bannon and dismissing his involvement in the campaign.
“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. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party,” the statement read.
“Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base—he’s only in it for himself,” the statement continued.
In the daily briefing, Sanders said she believed the last time the pair spoke was in \"the first part of December.\"
Bannon spoke out during a call-in segment of the “Breitbart News Tonight” radio show on Sirius XM, sharing kind words about the president.
“The president of the United States is a great man,” Bannon said. “You know I support him day in and day out.
Trump’s legal team issued cease-and-desist letters to Bannon -- demanding that he stop making disparaging comments about the president and his family -- and the author of the book, Michael Wolff, and his publisher in an attempt to stop publication.
Jan. 4, 2018: Changing tunes
When Trump was asked whether Bannon betrayed him with his comments in the book, Trump pointed to the favorable comments Bannon had made the night before.
“I don’t know, he called me a great man last night so he obviously changed his tune pretty quick,” Trump said.
Sanders was asked about Trump and Bannon’s relationship at the daily briefing, saying, “I'm not aware that they were ever particularly close.”
Jan. 5, 2017: Feud continues
The war of words reached a new level after Trump posted two tweets calling Bannon “Sloppy Steve.”
\"I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!\" Trump wrote in the first tweet.
In the second, he referenced a family of wealthy Republican donors -- the Mercers – who have pulled their financial support from Bannon, as ABC News reported on Jan. 4.
\"The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!\" the other tweet read.
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