Stephen Bannon says there was “no glamour” to his role as President Trump’s chief strategist, and he “hated every second” he was in the White House.
His frank comments come in a documentary, “The Brink,” that will debut in select theaters March 29, the Hill reported.
The director, Alison Klayman, trailed Bannon from October 2017 through the 2018 midterm elections.
“The West Wing has got a bad karma to it, it just has a bad feeling,” said Bannon, who left the Trump administration in August 2017. “They would say, ‘Because you were doing evil stuff.’ I actually thought I was doing the Lord’s work.”
Bannon lost favor in the White House after he was quoted in Michael Wolff’s 2018 book “Fire and Fury” making disparaging remarks about President Trump’s family, The Hill noted.
Days later, he stepped down as chairman of Breitbart New.
The Hill said Bannon’s self-deprecating humor comes out in the film.
He notes aloud a comment on an online article that refers to him as a “gross-looking Jabba the Hutt drunk.”
He laughs and says, “Oh my God, so funny.”
In another scene, he remarks: “Once the film comes out and people know I drink Kombucha, the stock will drop 50 percent.”
Klayman said she struggled “every day of working on this film and every night” regarding what she would say to critics who believe Bannon’s conservative worldview should not be featured on the big screen.
“Every day I would check in with myself and be reconfirming, what is the value of what you’re doing?” said Klayman. “This was really to look at our time — at the relationship between the media and him at the rise of far-right extremism, nationalism, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam sentiment — on a global scale, and to tell that story.”
Bannon said in a September 2017 interview he left the White House because the Trump administration “needed a wingman outside,” and he vowed to help elect Trump allies to the Senate.
In an interview last July with CNBC, Bannon said his message was still heard within the White House, explaining he was in contact with administration officials and implying he spoke with the president through lawyers.
He said in the interview that he would never return to the White House, declaring, “I hated every second of it.”
Bannon and Trump’s base
Conservative columnist Kristin Tate, a former Breitbart News reporter, said in a Fox News interview when the Wolff book came out that she believed Trump “looks really bad right now” for scorching Bannon.
Bannon is devoted to “Trumpism,” the president’s agenda, and “not necessarily to Trump the man,” she commented.
“So, when Bannon thinks Trump is making mistakes or not sticking to his promises, he’ll probably call Trump out on that,” she said. “Steve is an honest guy, he’s brilliant.”
Tate said she thought Trump made a mistake stating Bannon had nothing to do with his election victory, calling it “nonsense.”
“When Bannon came into the campaign, it was a disaster. Manafort had no idea how to control a candidate who was so unconventional, like Trump. Bannon came in there, he knew to let Trump be Trump, he knew how to connect Trump to his base,” she said.
