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In just 14 days Donald Trump has unleashed turmoil across America and the world.

From giving the green light to the Mexican border wall to imposing a travel ban on seven Muslim countries and threatening war with Iran – every one of these announcements bore the fingerprints of one man, Steve Bannon , 63.

He is now regarded as the second most powerful person in the world, the puppet-master pulling the strings of the Trump presidency.

A shaggy-haired, multi-millionaire, he is the power behind the throne who likens himself to Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell.

While Cromwell was a devout Christian famed for his intellect and curiousity, Bannon’s past is scattered with accusations of anti-semitism, racism, domestic violence and misogyny.

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And the far-right apologist also seems intent on starting a war with Islam.

And White supremacists are delighted. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called Bannon’s appointment to Trump’s team “excellent”, and Peter Brimelow, who runs the white nationalist site VDARE, called it “amazing.”

Much like Trump, Bannon has also been accused of being a misogynist. In a 2011 interview, while attacking the fight for sexual equality, he labelled liberal women “a bunch of dykes”.

Three times married, in 1996, he was charged with domestic violence after third wife Mary Piccard claimed Bannon violently pulled at her neck and wrist, then smashed her phone when she tried to call police.

He pleaded “not guilty,” but, she failed to appear in court, saying she had been threatened, so the case was dismissed. But Mary later added accusations of anti-Semitism. In 2007 court documents she claimed he didn’t want their daughters to go to a particular school because of the number of Jewish students enrolled.

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She alleged: “He said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”

Having guided Donald Trump to victory in the presidential race, Bannon now sets the political and strategic course in the White House and has the chance to bend history to his liking.

He sat opposite Trump in the Oval Office as the President called world leaders and slammed the phone down on the Australian Prime Minister after a fiery discussion on refugees.

Even senior Republicans were horrified Trump had drafted him on to the National Security Council – and ousted America’s most measured and respected intelligence and military officials.

Even conservative commentators described him as one of the “most dangerous” figures in ­American politics. Days after the last of nine black Bible students shot to death by a Confederate flag-worshipping white supremacist was buried, Bannon published “Hoist it High and Proud”.

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The incendiary piece, two weeks after the Charleston Church massacre in 2015, described the ensign that had become a symbol of white power, as part of America’s “glorious heritage”.

It was yet another article highlighting how Bannon said he would use his right-wing site, Breitbart News, to “destroy today’s establishment” as politicians fought for the flag to be banned.

Curiously, the prototype for the Trump campaign was Bannon’s support for Nigel Farage, launched by Breitbart’s UK offshoot in early 2014.

Journalists who worked there said he had wanted to fill a gap he had spotted in the British market for a news outlet with a populist, nationalist, anti-immigration agenda. Since then, Breitbart London has kept trumpeting Farage and UKIP as the political wing of that cause, helping push the party platform further to the right.

Bannon’s friendship with Farage led him to form the ultimate populist, right-wing double act when he arranged for the ex-UKIP leader to appear on stage with Trump at an election rally in August. It culminated in Farage being the first UK politician to physically congratulate Trump as the two men posed outside the billionaire’s New York home. Both men have campaigned on anti-immigration policies akin to Bannon’s views.

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Now just two weeks into Trump’s presidency, his influence in the White House and over the US leader is abundantly clear. Insiders say the former naval officer has already steered Trump toward implementing many of the course-altering foreign policy actions the President touted while on the campaign trail.

Bannon has been pivotal in ordering the construction of the border wall and implementing the temporary ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries while suspending admissions of refugees into the US.

He has made no secret of views on immigration. In 2015, Bannon was hosting a satellite radio show and said: “Why even let ’em in?”.

Bannon revels in disruption. In an interview in 2014 he said the “Judeo-Christian West” was at war with Islam – it just hadn’t realised it yet.

“There is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global.

“Every day that we refuse to look at this as it is – and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it – will be a day where you will rue that we didn’t act,” he said.

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The deluge of announcements and “executive orders” in Trump’s first weeks of action are typical of Bannon’s style, whose method is to always be on the offensive.

“He wants to flood the zone,” a former colleague said.

“If you can move fast to overwhelm the opposition, you’ll get a lot more gains than if you do it incrementally, that’s pure Bannon.

“It’s taking on real and imagined enemies and overwhelming them with stuff.”

A mile-a-minute talker who hums with energy, Bannon’s swept-back blond hair and love of cargo shorts and flip-flops make him look like a surfer from the swinging sixties still clinging on to his youth.

But anyone, as many have found to their cost, would be foolish to underestimate the former Goldman Sachs banker’s power.

The only thing to match the Washington elite’s loathing of Bannon is Trump’s love for him.

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He has made no secret of wanting to shake up the Republican party after claiming it had lost its way.

Bannon would add: “What we need to do is bitch slap the Republican party.”

His ability to control Trump was highlighted when he once questioned the President’s intelligence describing his boss as “blunt instrument for us. I don’t know whether he really gets it or not”.

Sources close to Bannon told the Mirror he is as happy to go after establishment Republicans as he is Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

After leaving the Naval Operations Staff at the Pentagon, he earned a master’s degree in national security studies at Georgetown University and then went on to Harvard Business School before making millions as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs’ New York offices.

He then opened his own investment bank investing in films before eventually making the leap into producing 18 movies.

These include right-wing films Face of Evil, a celebration of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and The Undefeated, a 2011 documentary which celebrated controversial, failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

One of his biggest money-spinners, which made him £25million, came from his investment in Castle Rock who produce hit TV comedy Seinfeld.

The irony of a Jewish comedy making money for someone accused of anti-semitism has not been lost.

How long will Trump indulge his maverick adviser?

Henry VIII kept Cromwell because he was “as cunning as a bag of serpents.”

Cromwell was eventually executed after falling out of the king’s favour.