Is Steve Bannon breaking up with Roy Moore? w/Update

We have just received word that Steve Bannon the head of Breitbart News maybe about to withdraw his support of Roy Moore’s Alabama Senate Candidacy.

The Daily Beast published a column late this afternoon called “Steve Bannon and Allies have second thoughts about Roy Moore”. 

LACHLAN MARKAY and ASAWIN SUEBSAENG at The Daily Beast reported the following: 

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon is keeping the door open to ditching Roy Moore as the sexual-assault allegations against the Alabama Republican Senate candidate continue to pile up.

Publicly, the Trump confidant and Breitbart chairman has stood behind Moore, who is now accused of attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl. Bannon has also railed against what he and his allies dub “fake news” and the GOP establishment for trying to push Moore out of the race.

But over the past few days, Bannon has begun privately taking the temperature of those in his inner circle to see what they think of the Moore allegations and to get their sense of how to proceed, according to four knowledgeable sources. Late last week, the Breitbart chairman said, “I will put him in a grave myself,” if he determines that Moore was lying to him about the numerous accusations, a source close to Bannon relayed.

Bannon emphasized, to both friends and colleagues, that he’s uncomfortable with the charges of sexual harassment and child molestation that have been levelled at Moore. But he wasn’t convinced that the initial flood of on-record testimony, starting with the first Washington Post story last week, was anything more than a hit job. And he believes it may have been planted by #NeverTrump operatives to put the screws to Moore’s campaign.

Several of Bannon’s most trusted allies have already told him that it would be “insane,” as one put it, to believe at this point that the Moore accusations are baseless. They have also warned that the time is rapidly approaching when he would have to disavow Moore before it appeared as though he was simply caving to political pressure. (Critics of Bannon, of course, argue he should never have backed Moore in the first place.)

Additionally on Tuesday, the front page of Breitbart featured a prominently placed headline that read, “POTUS TO REVISIT ROY MOORE SUPPORT AFTER RETURNING TO U.S." from his Asia trip—roughly the same position Bannon now finds himself in.

Since Breitbart ran on their front page today a headline that says President Trump will be “revisiting” his support of Roy Moore. Given Bannon and Breitbart’s strong ties to the President this lends serious credence to the idea that Bannon is seriously reconsidering his support of Roy Moore. If we were the Moore campaign we would be especially concerned about just how dedicated the President and Bannon are to getting him elected.

One other item of interest that caught our eye. Last week as the first of the sex assault allegations was made public. The Hill reported that Roy Moore was declining to debate his Democratic Senate opponent Doug Jones because of Jones’s stance on “transgender issues”. 

Moore stated "We’ve (Roy Moore) refused to debate them (Doug Jones) because of their very liberal stance on transgenderism and transgenderism in the military and in bathrooms. They are desperate.”

Interesting that Moore would specifically cite Jones’s stance on transgenderism as the reason he wouldn’t debate Jones. Especially since as we reported last month that Steve Bannon made millions by helping to distribute sexual predator Harvey Weinstein’s 2005 Pro Transgender Propaganda film “TransAmerica”.

Maybe Moore was afraid Jones would question accepting backing from Pro-Transgender Steve Bannon. Or perhaps a big nothingburger as some like to say.

UPDATE: It appears this story was just a big nothingburger. Bannon appears for the time being to be sticking with Roy Moore.