Kelli Ward downplays ties to Steve Bannon after Donald Trump unloads on him

Republican U.S. Senate front-runner Kelli Ward is downplaying her relationship with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon after President Donald Trump blasted him for making derogatory comments about Trump's children in a forthcoming book.

Ward, a former state senator from Lake Havasu City who has been seeking Trump's endorsement, is the leading GOP candidate for the seat being vacated by the retirement of U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

With great fanfare, she was joined by Bannon at an October campaign event in Scottsdale. But on Wednesday, following the blowup between Bannon and Trump, her spokesman said Bannon is only one of a number of "high-profile endorsements" of her candidacy.

The public Trump-Bannon breakup came a week after Bannon cut ties with another ally of Ward's in the outsider #MAGA (Make America Great Again) political movement, Paul Nehlen, for making anti-Semitic and racist tweets.

"The most important endorsements in this race will come from the voters of Arizona," her press secretary, Zachery Henry, said in a written statement posted on Twitter. "Steve Bannon is only one of many high-profile endorsements Dr. Ward has received. Her focus remains on winning this race, which she is in a great position to do, and then helping President Trump advance an America First agenda. The daily parlor intrigue in Washington, D.C. does nothing to improve the lives of the hard-working men and women of this country."

ROBERTS: Trump-Bannon blowup is bad for Ward

Trump last year tweeted his support of Ward in her challenge to Flake, who hadn't dropped out of the race at that point. But Trump has yet to officially endorse her, and the GOP field is not set. U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., the GOP establishment favorite, is expected to the enter the Senate race soon.

Ward on Dec. 22 had a brief exchange with the president at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that did not yield an immediate Trump endorsement.

On Wednesday, Trump ripped Bannon, his former adviser, after he was quoted in excerpts from Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" as saying Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. took part in a "treasonous" meeting with a Russian lawyer and that the president's daughter Ivanka Trump was "dumb as a brick."

"Steve doesn’t represent my base — he’s only in it for himself," Trump said Wednesday in a written statement.

Trump also hinted that he's become disenchanted with Bannon's political strategy of challenging Republican incumbents in the U.S. Senate. In addition to Flake, Bannon had targeted the Trump-backed Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., and has set his sights on Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller.

In his statement, the president blamed Bannon for losing Alabama's Republican-held Senate seat to Democrat Doug Jones. Both Bannon and Trump had backed Republican Roy Moore, even after his candidacy was rocked by allegations that Moore had sexually molested a 14-year-old girl and pursued other teen girls, ages 16 to 18, in the late 1970s and 1980s.

"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," Trump said in the statement.

The Ward campaign was less outspoken on Bannon compared to other Bannon-endorsed candidates, including Michael Grimm, a former congressman who served time in prison and who is seeking to return to the U.S. House of Representatives.

"I strongly denounce the comments made by Steve Bannon as quoted by Michael Wolff," Grimm said in a statement. "They are baseless attacks against the president's children, beyond disturbing, and I fully support our Commander in Chief."

Ward's campaign also did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic's request for comment on Nehlen, the primary challenger to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

A Bannon associate told CNN late last month that Nehlen "is dead to us" after a series of tweets that have been criticized for anti-Semitic and racist messages.

Like Ward, Nehlen is a border-security hawk. Ward previously had tweeted about hosting Nehlen in 2016 on her local radio show on KFNX-AM (1100) and in January 2017 posted a photo of herself with him.

"It was great to see him in #DC at the #DeploraBall," Ward tweeted.

TALKING POLITICS: Listen to our Arizona politics podcast, The Gaggle, on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher or Google Play.

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter, @dannowicki.

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