Donald Trump has named Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist and senior counsellor, describing them as “highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory”.

The president-elect has said that Priebus and Bannon, neither of whom have served in elected office, will work as “equal partners to transform the federal government”.

Stephen Bannon

Bannon, 62, replaced former lobbyist Paul Manafort as Trump’s campaign chief when Manafort left after reports of his past ties to pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians.

Bannon was the executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart News for much of the past decade. The site is the most widely read conservative news and opinion site in the US, but it is charged with being racist, antisemitic and sexist, and of repeatedly peddling conspiracy theories to further its agenda.

Breitbart has, among other things, accused Obama of “importing more hating Muslims”, compared conservative commentator Bill Kristol to a “renegade Jew”, likened Planned Parenthood’s work to the Holocaust, said young Muslims in the west were a “ticking time bomb”, and advised female victims of online harassment to “just log off” and stop “screwing up the internet for men”.

Bannon stands on the far right of the Republican party. Following his appointment, the Anti-Defamation League’s chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt, issued a statement calling Bannon “hostile to core American values”.

“It is a sad day when a man who presided over the premier website of the ‘alt-right’ – a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed antisemites and racists – is slated to be a senior staff member in the ‘people’s house’,” Greenblatt said.

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said: “It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of white supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide.”



Bannon is a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Business school. He is a former US Navy officer and investment banker at Goldman Sachs. He has also made documentary films celebrating Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, and was an early investor in the sitcom Seinfeld.

In 2007, Bannon’s ex-wife accused him of making antisemitic remarks when the two battled over sending their daughters to private school. Mary Louise Piccard said her former husband had objected to sending their twin daughters to an elite Los Angeles academy because he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews”, an accusation Bannon denied.

In 1996, Bannon faced domestic violence charges after Piccard accused him of grabbing her by the neck “violently” and destroying a telephone when she tried to summon police. The charges were dropped after his estranged wife did not show up at the trial, according to court records.



In August this year, the Guardian found that Bannon was registered to vote in Florida, a key swing state, at an empty house where he did not live, in an apparent breach of election laws. The revelation followed years of aggressive claims by Breitbart News that voter fraud was rife among minorities and in Democratic-leaning areas, an allegation that was repeated forcefully on the campaign trail by Trump, who predicted that the election would be “rigged”.

Bannon subsequently changed his registration.

He co-owns a condominium in Los Angeles and is known to stay at the so-called “Breitbart embassy”, a luxurious $2.4m townhouse beside the supreme court in Washington DC, where Breitbart staff work from basement offices.

Bannon has repeatedly criticised Republicans for not moving far enough to the right of the political spectrum. While Priebus’s selection signals an attempt to build bridges with the old Republican guard, Bannon’s appointment by Trump shows a commitment to the president-elect’s promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington.



“We had a very successful partnership on the campaign, one that led to victory,” Bannon said of Priebus in a statement. “We will have that same partnership in working to help President-elect Trump achieve his agenda.”

Bannon in five key quotes

On Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Ann Coulter: “These women cut to the heart of the progressive narrative. That’s one of the unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement – that, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be feminine, they would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the 7 Sisters schools.” (During an appearance on Political Vindication Radio in 2011 while promoting his movie, Fire From the Heartland: the Awakening of the Conservative Woman.)

On the GOP establishment: “What we need to do is bitch-slap the Republican Party.” (Political Vindication Radio in 2010.)

On the Occupy movement: “After making the Occupy movie, when you finish watching the film, you want to take a hot shower. You want to go home and shower because you’ve just spent an hour and fifteen minutes with the greasiest, dirtiest people you will ever see.” (Reported by the Atlantic in 2012.)



On the growing popularity of Breitbart.com: “Showing people that they can have a voice and you can channel that anger, where before you were defenseless. You can take that anger. And by the way, I think anger is a good thing. This country is in a crisis. And if you’re fighting to save this country, if you’re fighting to take this country back, it’s not going to be sunshine and patriots. It’s going to be people who want to fight ... We call ourselves the fight club.” (Reported by the Atlantic in 2016.)



On Donald Trump: “This is not the French Revolution. They destroyed the basic institutions of their society and changed their form of government. What Trump represents is a restoration – a restoration of true American capitalism and a revolution against state-sponsored socialism. Elites have taken all the upside for themselves and pushed the downside to the working- and middle-class Americans.” (To Bloomberg in November 2016.)

Reince Priebus

Priebus, 44, is the long-serving chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and loyal adviser to the Trump campaign. He is a Washington insider, having worked in government since 2004, and his friendship with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, is expected to be instrumental in securing early legislative victories for the Trump administration.

A lawyer by training, Priebus served as state treasurer in Wisconsin and worked his way up through the Wisconsin Republican party to become chairman in 2007.

After he led his party to success in the November 2010 elections in the state, which had previously been held by the Democrats, Priebus, together with Ryan and Scott Walker, became known as part of a rising Republican movement in Wisconsin that was influential at a national level. “A trio of young Wisconsin politicians are now positioned to have a substantial influence on the future direction and success of the Republican party,” the Washington Post wrote in 2011.

Priebus was elected to the job of chairman of the RNC in 2011, unseating Michael Steele, for whom he once served as general counsel. As part of his bid, he promised to put the committee’s finances in order and to modernise the party.

He later led the so-called “autopsy report” after the Republicans failed to win the 2012 presidential election, recommending efforts to win over Hispanic and women voters.



Priebus consistently appealed for unity within the Republican party, regardless of who would become the nominee, and forged a positive relationship with Trump following his victory in the primaries. He worked hard over several months to persuade rebellious factions to fall into line behind Trump, who, among others, had alienated the 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, the Bush family, as well as a handful of outspoken senators such as Susan Collins.

In August, Priebus said when it came to personal issues with Trump “I go with the flow”, and the following month, he suggested the party may take punitive action against failed presidential candidates who reneged on pledges to support him.

He earned Trump’s trust after steering the RNC’s resources behind the candidate despite Republican officials urging him to abandon the businessman. When Trump’s candidacy was steeped in controversy following the release of a 2005 tape in which he boasted of groping and kissing women without their consent, Priebus stood by his candidate and worked hard to salvage his run for office.

In the final stages of the campaign, Priebus travelled with Trump and held a critical position in helping him prepare for the debates against the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Trump praised Priebus during his victory speech, stating: “I never had a bad second with him. He’s an unbelievable star.”



Priebus’s reward is his appointment to one of the most powerful positions in Washington, from which he will be charged with ensuring that the president’s agenda passes uninhibited through Congress. His links to the Republican establishment will be significant for Trump, who has never served in government and has few links to mainstream figures in the party, many of whom turned away from him due to his mockery of disabled people and prisoners of war, as well as the string of sexual assault allegations that followed him throughout his campaign.



On Sunday, Priebus said in a statement that the Trump White House would “work to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism”.

Priebus in five key quotes

On the stress of the election: “People assume oh, are you – you must be miserable. You’ve got a horrible job. But I don’t see it that way. I’m not pouring Baileys in my cereal, I’m not sitting here trying to find a Johnnie Walker.” (To CNN in April 2016.)



On reports of Trump’s offensive treatment of women: “All these stories that come out – and they come out every couple weeks – people just don’t care. I think people look at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and say, ‘Who’s going to bring an earthquake to DC?’” (To Fox News Sunday in May 2016.)



On women under Democrats: “The Democrats’ agenda isn’t working for women. Their vision has produced big government and limited opportunity. Our vision is for limited government and opportunity for all.” (An op-ed in Townhall in 2012.)



On foreign policy: “In foreign policy, a Clinton presidency means forgetting our friends and enabling our enemies. Just look at her disastrous Iran nuclear deal, which lined the pockets of the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism with your money, while abandoning our greatest ally in the Middle East, the nation of Israel.” (In RNC speech in July 2016.)



On Trump’s “Grab ‘em by the pussy” video: “Nothing has changed in regard with our relationship. We are in full coordination with the Trump campaign. We have a great relationship with them. And we are going to continue to work together to make sure he wins in November.” (Reportedly told RNC committee members in October 2016 in a conference call.)