Bannon claims leadership of nationalist-populist movement after Trump backs McConnell-backed Senate candidate

EPILOGUE: BANNON AND TRUMP n a sweltering morning in October 2017, the man who had more or less single- handedly brought about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, stood on the steps of the Breitbart town house and said, with a hearty laugh, “I guess global warming is real.” Steve Bannon had lost twenty pounds since his exit from the White House six weeks before—he was on a crash all-sushi diet. “That building,” said his friend David Bossie, speaking about all White Houses but especially the Trump White House, “takes perfectly healthy people and turns them into old, unhealthy people.” But Bannon, who Bossie had declared on virtual life support during his final days in the West Wing, was again, by his own description, “on fire.” He had moved out of the Arlington “safe house” and reestablished himself back at the Breitbart Embassy, turning it into a headquarters for the next stage of the Trump movement, which might not include Trump at all. Asked about Trump’s leadership of the nationalist-populist movement, Bannon registered a not inconsiderable change in the country’s political landscape: “I am the leader of the national-populist movement.” One cause of Bannon’s boast and new resolve was that Trump, for no reason that Bannon could quite divine, had embraced Mitch McConnell’s establishment candidate in the recent Republican run-off in Alabama rather than support the nat-pop choice for the Senate seat vacated by now attorney general Jeff Sessions. After all, McConnell and the president were barely on speaking terms. From his August “working holiday” in Bedminster, the president’s staff had tried to organize a makeup meeting with McConnell, but McConnell’s staff had sent back word that it wouldn’t be possible because the Senate leader would be getting a haircut. But the president—ever hurt and confused by his inability to get along with the congressional leadership, and then, conversely, enraged by their refusal to get along with him—had gone all-in for the McConnell-backed Luther Strange, who had run against Bannon’s candidate, the right-wing firebrand Roy Moore. (Even by Alabama standards, Moore was far right: he had been removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020112