President Donald Trump's deputy press secretary called former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon "grotesque" and said there was no way for him to come back into the president's fold after his comments were featured in Michael Wolff's new book.

The move was seen as a rebuke of an apology Bannon issued late last week.

Trump has defended himself against attacks from sources in Wolff's book, writing on Twitter that he is a "very stable genius."



Speaking to reporters in Nashville on Monday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley called former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's statements in author Michael Wolff's explosive new book "repugnant" and "grotesque," and said he and President Donald Trump don't think "there is any way back for Mr. Bannon at this point."

"When you go after somebody's family in the matter which he did, two of the president's children are serving this nation, sacrificing in their service, it is repugnant, it is grotesque and I challenge anybody to go and talk about somebody's family and see if that person doesn't come back and comes back hard," Gidley stated, according to the White House press pool.

These strong words from the White House come after Bannon issued a lengthy apology for the statements he made to Wolff's book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," in which he said that 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," Bannon said.

Gidley appeared to rebuff this apology in Monday's comments.

In his rebuttal to Bannon, the deputy press secretary seemed to be specifically referencing Bannon's disparaging statements about Trump's daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump and his son, Trump Jr. Bannon called Ivanka "dumb as a brick" in one passage in the book, and called the meeting that Trump Jr. held with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower during the 2016 election "treasonous" in another.

Trump himself has gone on the offensive against Bannon, tweeting that he had "cried when he got fired and begged for his job."

Trump has also defended his intelligence in the wake of "Fire and Fury" as well.

"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart," Trump tweeted on Saturday.

The president reiterated these assertions later on, calling himself a "very stable genius."