Longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone said Thursday that embattled White House aide Steve Bannon is alone and surrounded in the West Wing and that no one in the administration should feel like they have long-term job security.
“He makes his own decisions. He also will make wholesale changes if he thinks things aren't going well,” Stone said of President Donald Trump in an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd for “MTP Daily.”
Stone would know. He left his role as an adviser to Trump’s campaign just two month after the real-estate mogul announced his run. Trump initially said Stone was fired, though the longtime GOP political operative said he quit the campaign to be an outside surrogate.
Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, is on the hot seat after media reports about his uncertain future in the administration and Trump’s own public statements downplaying his role in last year's surprise election victory and his current position. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump referred to Bannon as "a guy who works for me."
“I think Steve made an error by not spending any of his political capital to bring other Trump-ites and non-globalists into the White House circle. So now he’s alone,” Stone said. “Now he’s alone and he’s surrounded.”
The former head of Breitbart News has reportedly clashed with Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
RELATED: Trump appears to back away from Bannon
Stone said Kushner and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus have done a better job than Bannon of surrounding themselves with allies that have shielded them from some of the blame for the administration’s failures on health care and the hastily introduced travel ban.
Part of the reason for those failures, Stone thinks, is because Trump surrounded himself with “establishment Republicans who I don't think understand Trumpism.”
“He really does speak from the heart and he chooses his own path,” Stone said. “Some people who work for him may not know that yet but he’s his own man and he’s going to make his own decisions.”
The full interview is available for download as an episode of "1947: The Meet the Press Podcast." Watch Todd's full interview with Stone here:
