Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told his colleagues that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "an assassin" who's "going to get us" in the first days of President Donald Trump's presidency, according to a new book by two reporters for The Washington Post.
"The night of January 23 [2017], the first Monday of his presidency, Trump came face-to-face with House and Senate leaders from both parties at a White House reception ... At a long table in the State Dining Room, Steve Bannon ... could not stop looking at Nancy Pelosi," reads an excerpt from "A Very Stable Genius" by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. Axios published the excerpt Friday ahead of its release on Tuesday.
"Pelosi assumed Trump would open the conversation on a unifying note, such as by quoting the Founding Fathers or the Bible. Instead, the new president began with a lie: 'You know, I won the popular vote.' He claimed that there had been widespread fraud, with three to five million illegal votes for [Hillary] Clinton. Pelosi interjected. 'Well, Mr. president, that's not true,' she said. 'There's no evidence to support what you just said, and if we're going to work together, we have to stipulate to a certain set of facts.'
"Watching Pelosi challenge Trump, Bannon whispered to colleagues, 'She's going to get us. Total assassin. She's an assassin.'"
An excerpt from the book published by The Washington Post quotes Trump attacking senior officials and generals during a Pentagon meeting in the summer of 2017. Trump is quoted as saying, "you're all losers. You don't know how to win anymore. I wouldn't go to war with you people, you're a bunch of dopes and babies."
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