Trump Sends Mixed Messages on Bannon’s GOP Purge Plan

President Donald Trump on Monday sent mixed messages on the civil war brewing in the Republican Party, appearing to lend support for Steve Bannon’s efforts to knock off GOP incumbents before backing off that posture.

Speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting, Trump seemed to encourage Bannon, who has vowed to try to take out every Republican senator except for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the 2018 primary season.

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“I know he how feels,” he said. “Depends on who you are talking about. There are some Republicans, frankly, that should be ashamed of themselves.”

Most Republican senators are “really, really great,” Trump insisted.

“But you had a few people who really disappointed us,” he said. “They really, really disappointed us. So I can understand fully how Steve Bannon feels.”

Bannon, who left his role as White House chief strategist in August, returned to Breitbart as executive chairman with a mission of supporting Trump’s agenda by taking out Establishment Republicans — even if it means he is on opposite sides as Trump, as was the case in the Republican primary in a special election for an open Senate seat in Alabama.

At a Rose Garden appearance with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) later in the day, however, Trump tempered his enthusiasm for Bannon’s project.

“I like Steve a lot. Steve is doing what Steve thinks is the right thing,” he said. “Some of the people that he might be looking at, I’m going to see if we talk him out of that, because frankly, they’re great people.”

Trump suggested he would support most incumbent Republicans seeking re-election.

“What Mitch will tell you is that, maybe with the exception of a few — and that is a very small few — I have a fantastic relationship with the people in the Senate, and with the people in Congress, with our House of Representatives,” he said. “I have a great relationship with political people. If you read the papers, you think I’m, like, on one island and they’re on another. Well, that’s not the way it is.”

For his part, McConnell said he prioritizes electability over ideological purity. He pointed to a string of conservative candidates who pulled off primary upsets in 2010 and 2012 — Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri — only to lose to Democrats.

“They’re not in the Senate. And the reason for that was, they were not able to appeal to a broader electorate in the general election,” he said. “My goal as the Republican leader in the Senate is to keep us in the majority … You have to nominate people who can actually win, because winners make policy and losers go home.”

In a phrase that seems designed to appeal to Trump’s background, McConnell said the GOP “changed the business model” in 2014 and reclaimed the majority.

Eddie Zipperer, who teaches political science at Georgia Military College and is a regular contributor to LifeZette, said Bannon offers a useful way for Trump to send a message.

“Bannon works as a good foil for Trump,” he said.

The prospect of having to go up against Bannon to defend a slew of incumbents in primaries could push McConnell closer to the president, Zipperer said.

“That, obviously, is going to frighten Mitch McConnell more than anyone,” he said. “It forces McConnell to have to treat Trump more nicely than he would otherwise want to.”

Trump said the stakes are high.

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“Just so you understand, the Republican Party is very, very unified,” he said. “When you get things approved, we have to go through hell, because we have no Democrat support. We have nobody. We don’t have a vote from the Democrats.”

And despite an often-contentious relationship that has spilled into public at times, Trump insisted that his relationship is “closer than ever before” with McConnell.

“We’re fighting for the same thing,” he said. “We’re fighting for lower taxes. Big tax cuts. The biggest tax cuts in the history of our nation.”

(photo credit, homepage images: Steve Bannon, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore; photo credit, article images: …Steve Bannon, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)