Steve Bannon’s career is still at death’s door. Just kidding! Even if Bannon gets pushed out of the Trump White House – a possibility that seems more likely by the day – he’ll still have a lucrative career as a right-wing pundit, fake news journalist and white supremacist “thinker.” But for now, Bannon is still nominally employed by Donald Bigly Trump and the federal government. And he’s still fighting for his job too. While there are rumors that Trump has diminished Bannon’s role even further, Bannon believes he’s playing the long-game (the long-con, if you will) and that he will simply outlast Precious Ivanka and Jared Kushner’s machinations. Vanity Fair’s Sarah Ellison spoke to “a person familiar with Bannon’s thinking,” aka a person who is probably Steve Bannon, and this is what was said:

A person familiar with Bannon’s thinking told me that he remains profoundly misunderstood. He isn’t so much an ideologue, this person said, as a deal-maker; like his famous boss, he is willing to compromise. “People try and put him in a box to say he’s a political consultant when he really is a media executive,” this person said. This person went on to put some distance between Bannon and the Breitbart audience he is seen to represent in the West Wing. “I’m not saying he doesn’t agree with Breitbart; he does. He doesn’t agree with 100 percent of what’s there.” But, this person added, “he’s an executive first.”

Another person close to Bannon suggested that it was unlikely that he was going anywhere anytime soon. “The guy does not quit,” this person said. “I don’t think he’s going to quit.” David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, put it to me more bluntly. “Steve is part of the team. He was part of the team during the campaign. He is part of the team now. It is not about Steve. It is about the ideas that elected Donald Trump.”

The question that remains, however, is how much the president wants Bannon and Kushner to make peace. He has told them to do so and they reportedly did just that in Mar-a-Lago about a week ago. But those exhortations don’t seem to have quelled the backroom infighting. The person familiar with Bannon’s thinking told me on Friday that “the team is working well together,” but that sounded somewhat aspirational.

The person close to Bannon added, “Jared and Ivanka, do they want to be responsible for the day-to-day management of the federal government? No. They want to be prince and princess. That’s great! They’d be good at that. They want to be in the photo ops and they don’t want to be there doing crisis management. And that’s the point.” This person continued: “Leave the governance to Bannon and get Bannon a competent partner. By the way, he will never ask for that. He’s just too loyal a soldier.” (One White House aide patently rejected this characterization and pointed to Kushner’s expanding portfolio—such as his newly created S.W.AT. team, and his recent trip to Iraq—in defense of his work ethic and accomplishments.)

[From Vanity Fair]

There’s so much to unpack there. Like, do I agree with Steve Bannon’s assessment of Jared and Precious Ivanka? It’s a crazy, mad world, my God. Bannon is right: Ivanka especially wants to be a princess, not a negotiator, not a dealmaker, not a policy wonk. She wants to pose for photos and flirt with Justin Trudeau. Jared is different though – I have the feeling that Jared sees himself as someone who is brilliant and incredibly competent at everything, when the reality is that he’s just coasted on daddy’s money for much of his life. Now, all that being said… this assessment by a source close to Bannon is rather sad, isn’t it? It’s the portrait of a white supremacist clinging to what’s left of his power after he was outmaneuvered by two dim-bulbs who want to be royal.

Photos courtesy of Getty.