Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who has promised to wage "war" on the Republican establishment in the 2018 midterm elections, recently said Sen. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeJeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Republican former Michigan governor says he's voting for Biden Maybe they just don't like cowboys: The president is successful, some just don't like his style MORE (R-Ariz.) “went down without a fight."



“The establishment Republicans are in full collapse. They’re not even fighting back. They’re out of ideas, guts and out of money,” Bannon told the Financial Times.

“Flake was polling like crazy and the numbers were coming back terrible. Flake shows you one important thing. The money is getting turned off. He went down without a fight.”

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The comments from the head of Breitbart News come after Flake announced on Tuesday that he would not run for reelection in 2018 and delivered a speech critical of President Trump on the Senate floor.

Bannon recently campaigned with Flake’s primary challenger, former state Sen. Kelli Ward.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellGraham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Trump puts Supreme Court fight at center of Ohio rally The Memo: Dems face balancing act on SCOTUS fight MORE (R-Ky.), said after Flake’s announcement that Ward will not be the Republican nominee.

"The one political upshot of Sen. Flake’s decision today is that Steve Bannon’s hand-picked candidate, conspiracy-theorist Kelli Ward, will not be the Republican nominee for this Senate seat in 2018,” Steven Law, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.