Steve Bannon told 60 Minutes why Chris Christie didn’t get offered a position in Trump’s cabinet and you won’t be shocked at all:
Here’s more:
DC EXAMINER – Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said the release of the “Access Hollywood” video in the last month of the 2016 campaign served as a loyalty test for Donald Trump’s top advisers and ultimately cost New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a job in the Trump administration.
“The Billy Bush Saturday to me is a litmus test,” Bannon said in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” set to air Sunday. “It’s a litmus test, and I said it the other day to Gen. Kelly during the Charlottesville thing, afterwards. It’s a line I remember from the movie ‘The Wild Bunch.’ William Holden uses it right before that huge gunfight at the end. ‘When you side with a man, you side with him,’ OK?
“The good and the bad. You can criticize him behind, but when you side with him, you have to side with him, and that’s what Billy Bush weekend showed me. Billy Bush Saturday showed me who really had Donald Trump’s back to his better angels.”
After the tape was released, Bannon said, he got his “black book” and effectively blacklisted Christie from getting a job with the Trump administration because he failed to show loyalty to Trump.
“Christie, because of Billy Bush weekend … was not looked at for a Cabinet position,” Bannon said in a clip of the interview released Friday. “I told him, ‘The plane leaves at 11 o’clock in the morning. If you’re on the plane, you’re on the team.’ Didn’t make the plane.”
So it wasn’t just Trump that’s pushing this fierce loyalty thing, it was Bannon as well – which is pretty amazing considering that tape was horrible.
Last year it was reported that Christie was bumped from the White House transition team because of bride-gate. I suspect his lack of loyalty over the Access Hollywood tape probably played a part in that as well.