President Trump signed a memorandum late Saturday afternoon that reorganizes the National Security Council (NSC), including Steve Bannon, the former chair of Breitbart Media and his chief strategist and senior counselor, as well as Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, on its principals committee. The decision is unusual because such positions are not normally given to political operatives. Bannon has been among the most controversial of Trump’s advisors, because of his association with the racist and anti-Semitic “Alt-Right.
More from the Washington Post:
That memo also states that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will sit on the principals committee only when the issues to be discussed pertain to their “responsibilities and expertise.” In the previous two administrations, both were included as regular attendees.
The White House thinks the changes will make the NSC more adaptive to modern threats. Trump said the changes would bring “a lot of efficiency and, I think, a lot of additional safety.”
The changes affirm the ascent of Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart, a conservative website that is popular with white nationalists, who has emerged as Trump’s political consigliere and the keeper of the president’s populist flame.
Bannon has already been playing a major role in directing Trump’s foreign policy, administration officials say, and joined the president in the Oval Office on Saturday for his calls with Putin and several other world leaders.
So the guy who wants journalists to shut their mouths, made a movie mythologizing Sarah Palin, and ran a hate group disguised as a news outlet, is now sitting on the National Security Council while the DNI is kicked to the curb?
Apparently there is quite literally no end to this nightmare.
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