Nicolás Ortega for BI
Reclining out on his terracotta-tiled terrace, his bare feet propped up on a worn ottoman, Steve Bannon gets a phone call. We're 2,000 miles from the Oval Office, at Bannon's Tuscan villa outside Tucson, an Italianate fountain gurgling away beside him. You might think Donald Trump's former strategist-in-chief is out of the loop these days, relegated to basking in the Arizona sun. But the call is from Alexandra Preate, a Bannon protégé who's now a top advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The stock market has just gone into a nosedive, spooked by Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs, and Preate wants to consult with Bannon on Bessent's markets-calming remarks to reporters that morning outside the White House.
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