Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump unleashed a spectacular denunciation of one of his closest political allies Wednesday, describing former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon as insane and irrelevant.

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After the release of explosive excerpts from a new book in which Bannon reportedly described Trump's eldest son's meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic," Trump wasted no time firing back.

The embattled Republican president issued a response that was searing even by his combative standards.

"Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind," Trump said in a written statement.

Trump said Bannon -- who engineered the New York real estate mogul's link to the nationalist far right and helped create a pro-Trump media ecosystem -- was "only in it for himself."

Trump's fury appeared to have been provoked by the publication of startling extracts from "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by author Michael Wolff.

Passages published by The Guardian and New York magazine quoted Bannon being highly critical of Trump's son Donald Junior and daughter Ivanka.

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