Who is Steve Bannon and what is the National Security Council?

Who is Bannon, what does the National Security Council do and how big a deal is the order? Here’s a look at the man who will be in on the most secure discussions of national security matters.

Who is Bannon?

Shortly after his election on Nov. 8, Trump named former Breitbart News executive chairman Bannon to be his “chief strategist and senior counselor.” He did so on the day he named Reince Priebus as his White House chief of staff.

Trump’s appointment of Priebus was generally accepted as a good choice, but not so for the selection of Bannon as an adviser.

Bannon, 63, has been a lightning rod for controversy since he joined Trump’s campaign in August 2016 as campaign CEO. It was announced the same day that GOP strategist Kellyanne Conway had been promoted to campaign manager.

Bannon, a former U.S. Navy officer and a graduate of Harvard Business School, worked for Goldman Sachs, launched his own investment company, produced films and invested in the television series “Seinfeld” when the show needed help getting started.

Bannon is probably best known, at least in the last few years, as the head of Breitbart News. He was a founder of the right-wing site and became executive chair of the company when Andrew Breitbart died in March 2012.

Bannon said in an interview with Mother Earth: "We're the platform for the alt-right,” or “alternative right,” a movement that espouses views far to the right of traditional conservative ideas in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center has warned that Bannon is the “main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill.”

Bannon is the founding chairman of Government Accountability Institute (GAI), a nonprofit that investigates politicians and delivers findings to mainstream media outlets, like Newsweek and ABC News, according to Bloomberg.

GAI’s president, Peter Schweizer, wrote “Clinton Cash” as well as the ;ebook “Bush Bucks." "Clinton Cash,” which looked at donations made to the Clinton Foundation, a topic of constant attention during Trump’s campaign, was later made into a documentary.

The Washington Post said in November that it believes that Bannon’s job will likely be on par with that of Karl Rove’s under President George W. Bush’s administration or John Podesta’s under President Barack Obama’s administration.

Susan Rice, a former Obama national security adviser, referred to the decision to include Bannon in the meetings as “stone-cold crazy” in a tweet:

What is the National Security Council and how does it work?

The National Security Council is meant to be a group of advisers upon whom the president relies when considering matters of national security or foreign policy.

The council was created in 1947 with the intention of senior members of the administration formally advising the president on U.S. security measures and implementing those measures among the government agencies that they oversee.

According to the National Security Act of 1947, the aim beyond advice is coordination and concurrence among the branches of the military and other national security agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency.

The National Security Act requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence to have seats on the Principles Committee. Trump signed an executive order Sunday that assigns a permanent invitation to Bannon and removes the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.

Priebus said Monday that Coats and Dunford will be invited to participate in any meetings they wish to attend.

Trump press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday during a news conference that the notion that Coats and Dunford are being “downgraded” is “utter nonsense.” Spicer discussed the language of the makeup of the Principals Committee, saying that it is identical to President Obama’s organization of the NSC.

Both men are welcome to come to any meeting they wish, Spicer said, and "nothing has changed” in their statuses. Spicer said the men would not be required to attend meetings that do not fall under their agencies' responsibilities, such as a meeting on a flu epidemic.

The National Security Council is chaired by the president. Its members are, by statute, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the secretary of energy, the national security adviser and the secretary of the treasury. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military adviser to the council, the director of national intelligence is the statutory intelligence adviser, and the director of national drug control policy is the statutory drug control policy adviser.

Spicer announced that Trump amended Sunday’s order to include the CIA director in the committee. Spicer directed his comments to Rice, though not by name. Rice had tweeted the question: “Chairman of Joint Chiefs and DNI treated as afterthoughts in Cabinet-level principals meetings. And where is CIA?? Cut out of everything?”

Spicer said the CIA director would be in the NSC, though “he wasn’t in yours.”

Robert Gates, who held security posts in both Republican and Democratic administrations, said Bannon’s promotion was a "big mistake."

“My biggest concern is there are actually, under the law, only two statutory advisers to the National Security Council and that's the director of central intelligence, or the DNI, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think pushing them out of the National Security Council meetings, except when their specific issues are at stake, is a big mistake," he said on ABC’s "This Week." "I think that they both bring a perspective and judgment and experience to bear that every president, whether they like it or not, finds useful.”