President Donald Trump on Friday fired Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, in the latest White House shake-up, removing a far-right architect of his 2016 election victory and a driving force behind his nationalist and anti-globalization agenda.
Bannon's firing, a year and a day after Trump hired him as his campaign chief, put an abrupt end to the rabble-rousing political provocateur's tumultuous tenure in a White House riven with rivalries and back-stabbing during which he clashed with more moderate factions.
He was instrumental in some of Trump's most contentious policy moves including the ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries, abandoning the Paris climate accord, tearing up international trade agreements and cracking down on illegal immigration. He was no friend of the Republican political establishment and was loathed by liberals but was a darling of some of the president's hard-line conservative supporters.