Bannon and Priebus praise Trump at a party‑stage event

publicity-shy man, was eating up the camera. He was a country music star—he was Johnny Cash. He seized Priebus’s hand in a power handshake, then relaxed in his chair as Priebus came too eagerly forward in his. Priebus opened with traditional bromides. Bannon, taking his turn, went wryly for the dig: “I want to thank you for finally inviting me to CPAC.” “We decided to say that everybody is a part of our conservative family,” said Matt Schlapp, resigned. He then welcomed “the back of the room,” where the hundreds of reporters covering the event were positioned. “Is that the opposition party?” asked Bannon, shielding his eyes. Schlapp went to the setup question: “We read a lot about you two. Ahem ...” “It’s all good,” replied Priebus tightly. “Til bet not all of it’s accurate,” said Schlapp. “Ill bet there’s things that don’t get written correctly. Let me ask both of you, what’s the biggest misconception about what’s going on in the Donald Trump White House?” Bannon responded with something just less than a smirk and said nothing. Priebus offered a testimonial to the closeness of his relationship with Bannon. Bannon, eyes dancing, lifted the microphone trumpetlike and made a joke about Priebus’s commodious office—two couches and a fireplace—and his own rough-and- ready one. Priebus hewed to the message. “It’s, ahh ... it’s actually ... something that you all have helped build, which is, when you bring together, and what this election shows, and what President Trump showed, and let’s not kid ourselves, I can talk about data and ground game and Steve can talk about big ideas but the truth of the matter is Donald Trump, President Trump, brought together the party and the conservative movement, and I tell you if the party and the conservative movement are together’—Priebus knocked his fists “similar to Steve and I, it can’t be stopped. And President Trump is the one guy, he was the one person, and I can say this after overseeing sixteen people kill each other, it was Donald Trump who was able to bring this country, this party, and this movement together. And Steve and I know that and we live it every day and our job is to get the agenda of President Trump through the door and on pen and paper.” With Priebus gasping for breath, Bannon snatched the relay baton. “I think if you look at the opposition party’—throwing his hand out to the back of the room—“and how they portrayed the campaign, how they portrayed the transition, and now how they are portraying the administration, it’s always wrong. I mean on the very first day that Kellyanne and I started, we reached out to Reince, Sean Spicer, Katie... . It’s the same team, you know, that every day was grinding away at the campaign, the same team that HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019983