White House defends Steve Bannon’s role on National Security Council

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday continued to defend President Trump’s decision to include his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, as part of the National Security Council, while seeming to make attendance at council meetings optional for the director of national intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Press secretary Sean Spicer cast criticism of the move as much ado about nothing and said Obama political adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs also attended NSC meetings.

Bannon is specifically included as a member of the NSC, while Axelrod and Gibbs were not. Spicer said during his Monday press briefing that Bannon's inclusion was an example of "transparency."

Spicer tried to highlight the similarities between Trump's directive and those issued by former presidents Obama and George W. Bush. However, while Trump included Bannon on the "principals committee," the "Cabinet-level senior inter-agency forum for considering policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States," the director of national intelligence and chairman of the Joint Chiefs were listed as optional members of that committee.

Obama listed those two officials as "regular members" of that committee. Trump's directive does mirror George W. Bush's from 2001, which said the director of the CIA (before the creation of the national intelligence director post) and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs should attend committee meetings when "issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed."

Spicer said Trump has tremendous respect for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and director of national intelligence and they are "always welcome to attend NSC meetings." In some cases, however, he said their attendance might not be necessary, for example in the case of discussing a threat from a pandemic flu.

"We recognize that certain homeland security issues may not be military issues," Spicer said. He said the administration plans to amend it's order to include the director of the CIA, whom Obama's directive did not include.

The National Security Council was established in 1947 to advise the president and present viewpoints and policies from across the military and federal agencies and departments. Every administration typically issues a directive laying out the organization of the council.

But critics of Trump’s directive, issued in a memorandum Saturday, say they are worried about the inclusion of Bannon, a former Breitbart News editor. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., praised many of Trump’s national security picks, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and national security adviser Michael Flynn. But he said on Sunday that Trump’s reorganization of the council is “of concern.”

“I am worried about the National Security Council. Who are the members of it and who are the permanent members? The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any National Security Council in history," McCain said on Face the Nation on CBS.

Democrats offered much harsher criticism. House Minority Whip Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., called Bannon's inclusion an "outrageous, incompetent move" that sends the message that "ideology and partisan politics will be injected into the process of decision-making over questions of national security."

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said it is "dangerous and unprecedented. He must be removed."

President George W. Bush specifically excluded his chief political adviser Karl Rove from council meetings, but Spicer said on MSNBC that Bannon “isn’t playing Karl Rove’s part” in the Trump administration.

“Steve has an extensive military background, extensive background in geopolitical affairs, and the assumption that he's playing the same role as Karl Rove is just not accurate,” Spicer said on MSNBC. “And so, he brings to the table a much greater scope of the political landscape, vis-a-vis the world — the geopolitical landscape in national security affairs. And I think codifying it and putting it out there is something we're not trying to hide. In the Obama administration, they had people going in and out of NSC meetings without people knowing unless they got caught wind of.”

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Bannon served for seven years in the Navy, where he did stints as a surface warfare officer and as a special assistant to the Navy’s top admiral at the Pentagon, the Military Times reported. He earned a master’s degree in national security studies from Georgetown University and went on to attend Harvard Business School before taking a job at Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street investment bank.

He spent time as an investment banker, first with Goldman Sachs, then founded his own firm and eventually transitioned to media, Fortune reported.

He spent time in Hollywood, financing and producing films before taking over Breitbart News in 2012 after the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart.

Trump tapped him in August last year to become chief strategist of his campaign and then appointed him chief strategist at the White House in November.

Some specialists say it’s too soon to judge what his inclusion on the National Security Council means.

“We should not read too much into this document in terms of projecting who will run the show, and based on what input,” said Matthew Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College who has studied the presidency and presidential advisers. “Personalities matter a lot here, and you can’t get a feel for them based on a memorandum.”

Dickinson said that Bannon’s inclusion is “unusual” and noted that George W. Bush didn’t invite Rove because he “didn’t want to signal that politics was entering into national security decision-making."

“(But) one could argue that a pure separation of national security strategy and politics is not only unfeasible — it’s a bad idea,” Dickinson said. “Politics matters — if you don’t have political support for, say, intervening in Iraq, it is worth discussing that.  Bottom line — I think the initial media reaction to the inclusion of Bannon is probably exaggerating its implications, but of course much depends on Bannon’s actual influence.”

Contributing: Gregory Korte and David Jackson.