The White House (yeah) issued a statement this afternoon (via Reuters):

”Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.

”Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself.

”Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books.

“We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.”

This statement is so Republican. It's like Tea Party I-never-heard-of-George-W-Bush Republican.

Count the lies! Okay here's a few:

"staffer" - Bannon was chief strategist and they even tried to slip him onto the National Security Council. Not a coffee boy, Donald.

"most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party." - JEB! with an exclamation point and "please clap"? And Marco? And Ted Cruz?

"Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look." - Like on Obamacare and getting Mexico to pay for the Wall?

"Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me" - You're still on the phone with him almost every day. Please.

"...leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was." Tell it to Breitbart.

"Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans" You endorsed the candidate, gave speeches for him, and the RNC gave the pedophile money to the very end.

Not defending Steve Bannon, folks.

And my colleague Karoli told me that the comments over at Breitbart (no link because come on) are as you would expect. The MAGAs and Frogs are mad at Trump because of his betrayal of "Steve."

Finally, how cool is it that the news of this statement broke while Ted Lieu was on CNN? His reaction is worth noting in that he takes it RIGHT back to Watergate. Democrats get the Congress back and quick. This is impeachment time, folks.

TED LIEU: During Watergate, the administration would issue statements like this which I would call a nondenial denial. Basically, the president is not denying what Steve Bannon said. He's attacking the messenger Steve Bannon. The reason he can't deny what Steve Bannon said is because we have e-mails about this meeting. Now we also know why the president and his son Trump Junior tried so hard to cover up what happened at this meeting. If you remember earlier last year, they issued two press statements about this meeting that were false and misleading. They said the meeting was just about Russian adoptions and nothing about campaigns. That was totally wrong.

Editor's Note (Karoli):

This is Donald J. Trump climbing into the mainstream Republican lifeboat to sail away toward the midterms. Bannon lost in Alabama. That's the key point there, so Trump is going to toss his hat in with those Republicans who appear less extreme.

They are NOT less extreme. This is just a lifeboat that will sink in the middle of the sea of money laundering and other charges. It's precious that anyone thinks a split with Steve Bannon will improve the outlook for 2018. It will not.

Trump IS the Republican party, and we must crush them.

Update:

He'll probably delete this. I don't think he does this for a nobody.