Just 66 days after being appointed, Steve Bannon has stepped down from his position on the National Security Council after reportedly attending just one meeting held by the NSC Principals Committee, ending a tenure that has proven to be so short it was outlasted by Kim Kardashian’s second marriage.
Bannon can at least console himself with one fact: Michael Flynn resigned as Trump’s National Security Adviser after less than a month in the position.
Bannon’s appointment to the NSC on January 29 enraged Donald Trump’s opponents. Many accused the president of trying to politicize the council by giving the Breitbart chairman turned White House senior adviser a position on the council, while demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman by only allowing them to attend meetings concerning their respective departments.
But thanks to the sudden ousting of former NatSec adviser Michael Flynn after it was revealed he misled officials about his talks with a Russian ambassador, Trump and Bannon seemed to have come to an agreement to call time on Bannon’s tenure on the council.
White House officials told The Hill that Bannon had been brought on to make sure that Flynn carried out the Trump Administration’s wishes to reduce the size and role of the NSC, and that his presence was no longer necessary now that H.R. McMaster had replaced Flynn.
“General McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function,” said Bannon in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, also saying that he was brought on to ensure that the moves made by Barack Obama’s NatSec Adviser, Susan Rice, to “operationalize” the NSC, were reversed.
So just how short was Bannon’s time on NSC? It was six days shorter than Kim Kardashian’s marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries. The celebrity couple had an extravagant wedding in August 2011, but cut the knot 72 days later citing irreconcilable differences. She’s now married to Kanye West.
Other infamously short marriages that lasted longer than Bannon’s NSC credentials include nuptials between Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson (132 days) and Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley (108 days).