NEW YORK: Former White house top strategist, Steve Bannon, apologized Sunday for his critical comments of President Donald Trump's family in a new book, dragging the controversy into its fifth day as the Trump administration kept up its attacks on both the former chief strategist and "Fire and Fury" author Michael Wolff.
"Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around," Bannon said in a statement. "I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency."
In his statement Sunday, Bannon said those comments were actually about Manafort, not Trump Jr.
"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr," he said.
The on-the-record comments from Bannon sparked intense backlash from the White House, which has characterized Bannon's cooperation with Wolff as a "betrayal." The book has also distracted Republicans and forced them to answer questions about the president's temperament and mental stability, even as congressional and Cabinet leaders gathered at Camp David over the weekend to chart their 2018 agenda.
Trump on Sunday still seemed fixated on the situation, calling it a "Fake Book" on Twitter days after the first excerpts appeared online Wednesday. White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, in what turned into a hostile back-and-forth with host Jake Tapper, said on CNN that it was a "garbage book" containing nothing more than "poorly written fiction." He also called Bannon's comments "grotesque" and said the White House was "deeply disappointed."
Manafort, Trump's campaign manager from June to August 2016, was indicted in October in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian collusion with the president's campaign in the 2016 presidential election.
Bannon's comments to Wolff, which were first reported Wednesday by The Guardian, provoked President Donald Trump to say that Bannon had "lost his mind."
Bannon, who headed the Trump presidential campaign, left his job as White House political advisor in August by mutual consent with the administration.
"When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump said Wednesday in a statement.
The Guardian obtained a copy of the book nearly a week before it had been scheduled to go on sale. The publisher, Henry Holt & Co., moved up the sale date to Friday after attorneys for Trump threatened to seek a cease and desist order to stop the sales.
Wolff's book describes Trump's behavior as childlike, and it questions his mental fitness. That apparently prompted an extraordinary statement on Saturday by Trump defending his own mental health.
"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart," Trump tweeted.
"I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star ... to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"