美国国家公共电台 NPR Steve Bannon Out At Breitbart News

Steve Bannon Out At Breitbart News

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Breitbart News has announced this afternoon that its larger-than-life chairman is out. Stephen Bannon's departure is directly linked to his blistering¹ assessment² of President Trump³'s intelligence and fitness for the job in a book that was published last week. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik has been covering the Bannon rollercoaster for years from his days at Breitbart to the White House and now perhaps to the dog house. David's with us from New York. Hey, David.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE⁴: Hey, Kelly.

MCEVERS: So Bannon's job at Breitbart was executive chairman, and his job was also to say outrageous⁵ things, right? I mean, what tipped this over the edge to his dismissal?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, Breitbart certainly defined his job as being something of a rhetorical bomb thrower usually aimed at the left or those within the Republican and conservative establishments he saw as insufficiently⁶ devoted⁷ to his brand and his version of conservatism. In this case, he's aiming at inside the White House and inside the president's inner-circle, suggesting that the president's son Donald Jr. and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had somehow engaged possibly in criminal or even treasonous acts by meeting with Russian figures in the summer of 2016 and by - as you mentioned, by just castigating⁸ the president for a lack of intelligence, a lack of focus, a lack of seriousness of purpose and conveying sort of a contempt in the idea that somehow Trump was a vehicle for what he wanted to accomplish.

You know, the Mercer family - Robert Mercer had been a major funder, had sold his stake in November in Breitbart to his daughters. Rebekah Mercer, who remained one of the owners, issued a statement saying the writing was on the wall, denouncing Bannon for what he had to say. And the Mercers had really - had been putting money behind Trump's causes and Trump's interests in recent months. So the writing was there.

MCEVERS: Yeah. I mean, remind us quickly. What was his legacy⁹ at Breitbart and with the Trump campaign and then at the White House?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, Bannon sort of sees himself as something of a messianic figure. He took over Breitbart News after the death of its founder¹⁰ and namesake, Andrew Breitbart. And it was a really conservative site, but he pulled it farther rightward. And he - as he told Mother Jones magazine once, he saw it as a platform for the "alt-right," which is this loose conglomeration¹¹ umbrella term for certain kinds of cultural conservatives, men's rights activists¹² and certain, you know, white supremacists, actual outright¹³ racists.

He didn't want to necessarily express those views himself, but he wanted them to be real comfortable on Breitbart. And he used that as a vehicle to ultimately promote Trump's candidacy as he saw Trump gaining steam and as he saw Trump championing causes like the border wall, like a kind of - exclusionary¹⁴ policies towards people from certain Muslim countries that he could then promote from Breitbart and ultimately promote from inside the White House.

MCEVERS: Yeah. Bannon of course returned to Breitbart after leaving the White House and promised to build this new populist, conservative movement, you know? And I think the big question now is, who has control of those voters? Is it Bannon? Is it Breitbart? Is it Trump?

FOLKENFLIK: You know, it's a really interesting question. You've seen Trump's approval scores go down and down, and it's sort of to a hardened, smaller base that seems to be still supportive of him. Breitbart's own traffic has gone down significantly since the election and over the first year in office - the Trump White House. And Bannon, you know, seems largely in some ways vulnerable or marginalized by virtue¹⁵ of his championing of Roy Moore in that Alabama Senate race that really lost that seat for the Republican Party.

MCEVERS: What are we to make of Bannon's rise and fall, then? And you know, will there be another rise again? What do we learn from all this?

FOLKENFLIK: I think there are two things you can take from it. It certainly is a signal example of just extraordinary egotism and the idea that somehow he had the answers to fill in the great vacuum of ideas that he saw in Trump himself. And the second thing is, you know, in some ways, he did represent the spear that provided an injury and in some ways exposed the widening fissures¹⁶ within the Republican Party and the conservative movement itself. I think in some ways, he's a manifestation¹⁷ rather than a cause of those divisions.

MCEVERS: OK.

FOLKENFLIK: But, boy, you know, he sure served as a bomb going off amid a lot of these culturally conservative institutions.

MCEVERS: NPR's David Folkenflik, thanks.

FOLKENFLIK: You bet.

1 blistering   

adj.酷热的；猛烈的；使起疱的；可恶的v.起水疱；起气泡；使受暴晒n.[涂料] 起泡

参考例句：

• The runners set off at a blistering pace. 赛跑运动员如脱缰野马般起跑了。
• This failure is known as preferential wetting and is responsible for blistering. 这种故障称为优先吸湿，是产生气泡的原因。 来自辞典例句

2 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

6 insufficiently   

adv.不够地，不能胜任地

参考例句：

• Your insurance card is insufficiently stamped. 你的保险卡片未贴足印花。 来自辞典例句
• Many of Britain's people are poorly dressed, badly housed, insufficiently nourished. 许多英国人衣着寒伧，居住简陋，营养不良。 来自互联网

7 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

8 castigating   

v.严厉责骂、批评或惩罚（某人）( castigate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Do not overdo your privilege of reproving or castigating me. 不要过分使用责备我的特权；不要对我倚老卖老。 来自互联网
• He is capable of castigating his own country. 他也会痛诋他的祖国。 来自互联网

9 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

10 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

11 conglomeration   

n.团块，聚集，混合物

参考例句：

• a conglomeration of buildings of different sizes and styles 大小和风格各异的建筑楼群
• To her it was a wonderful conglomeration of everything great and mighty. 在她看来，那里奇妙地聚集着所有伟大和非凡的事业。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

12 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

14 exclusionary   

adj.排斥（性）的，排除在外的

参考例句：

• Play not finish, uncle fidgeting, cut exclusionary. 戏未演完，叔父坐立不安，仓皇退席。 来自互联网
• Procecutor: I am asking you to recognize the absurdity of the exclusionary rule. 检察官：我是在请求您认识到这个排除规则的荒谬性。 来自互联网

15 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

16 fissures   

n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 )；裂伤；分歧；分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Rising molten rock flows out on the ocean floor and caps the fissures, trapping the water. 上升熔岩流到海底并堵住了裂隙，结果把海水封在里面。 来自辞典例句
• The French have held two colloquia and an international symposium on rock fissures. 法国已经开了两次岩石裂缝方面的报告会和一个国际会议。 来自辞典例句

17 manifestation   

n.表现形式；表明；现象

参考例句：

• Her smile is a manifestation of joy.她的微笑是她快乐的表现。
• What we call mass is only another manifestation of energy.我们称之为质量的东西只是能量的另一种表现形态。