Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, is vowing to depose him, telling The New York Times that “I have an objective that Mitch McConnell will not be majority leader, and I believe will be done before this time next year.” Mr. McConnell, he added, “has to go.”

To that, Mr. McConnell laughed. “You can write that down,” he said in an interview on Friday. “I laughed. Ha-ha. That’s a perfect response.”…

“Mitch will be very calm, he’ll be very strategic, he’ll be very surgical and he will eventually eviscerate Mr. Bannon, and Bannon won’t even know what happened to him,” said Bill Stone, a former chairman of the Republican Party in Louisville who is close to Mr. McConnell. “Bannon is dealing with a man of intellect and a man of experience and a man of patience and resolve like he’s never met in his life.”