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Paul Nehlen Feels Vindicated By Trump-Bannon Reckoning

Paul Nehlen is feeling vindicated for having been dumped by Breitbart News now that President Donald Trump is attacking Breitbart’s chairman, Steve Bannon.

Nehlen, a Wisconsin businessman who is running to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan, released a statement Thursday patting himself on the back for standing for a “true America First agenda.” He also stated that he had “long considered Bannon and Breitbart a liability to me.”


The statement came after Trump’s characteristically belittling public break with Bannon, his former chief strategist.

Trump rebuked Banon Wednesday for his extensive cooperation for a book about the Trump team’s first year in the White House. In the book, Bannon calls Ivanka Trump “dumb as a brick” and predicts that Don, Jr. will “crack like an egg” about the campaign’s alleged collusion with the Russian government. Bannon was skewered by the “alt-right” for his role in the book.

Nehlen is widely seen as embracing anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric and ideologies used by white nationalists across the country. He accused a fellow Trump supporter of being a “shill for the sheckels [sic],” a reference to the Israeli currency. He has tweeted images of his reading list, which includes a book by a man known as the “neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic.” And he casually trades in anti-Semitic, white nationalist memes.

In late December, an editor at Breitbart, which had supported Nehlen, tweeted that the media outlet no longer endorsed his campaign.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

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