“Sloppy Steve” has crawled back to President Trump with his tail between his legs

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon listens at right as President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on cyber security in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Fired Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who incited the president’s ire to such a degree that he was publicly branded “Sloppy Steve,” has apologized for comments attributed to him that appeared in the controversial book “Fire and Fury.”

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RELATED: Trump blasts Steve Bannon after Don Jr. statements

The Michael Wolff book, which President Trump has called a “fake book,” quoted Bannon as saying, “Even if you thought that this [Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer] was not treasonous, or unpatriotic or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Bannon also said, “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

Trump responded to this with an explosive statement, saying Bannon had “nothing” to do him or his presidency, the he “lost his mind” when he was fired, that he was to blame for Republicans losing a Senate seat in Alabama and that he is a pretender:

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.

The president then nicknamed Bannon “Sloppy Steve” and also called him a “leaker.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/949126530839572481

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/949303089416294401

Today, Axios got exclusive response from Bannon in which he called Donald Trump Jr. a “patriot,” gave unconditional support to “the president and his agenda” and said the treason comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, not Donald Trump Jr.

“Donald Trump, Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around,” he said. “My support is also unwavering for the president and his agenda — as I have shown daily in my national radio broadcasts, on the pages of Breitbart News and in speeches and appearances from Tokyo and Hong Kong to Arizona and Alabama.”

“My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends,” he added. “To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.”

RELATED: “Treasonous”: Bannon hits Don Jr., Kushner over Trump Tower meeting

Bannon ended his response by saying he regretted that he delayed setting the record straight on “inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr.”

“I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president’s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency,” he said.

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