News that the Breitbart News Network's top executive is temporarily leaving his post to effectively run Donald Trump's presidential campaign has current and former staffers at the right-wing website both bewildered and irritated.

News of the move broke early Wednesday and shocked some in political-media circles, while others saw it as a natural course of events, given Breitbart's reputation for exceedingly sympathetic coverage of the Republican nominee and his campaign.

Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart, will go on hiatus from that position to serve as chief executive of the Trump campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"I don't really have much to offer except that I would just say I'm stunned speechless," a current Breitbart staffer told the Washington Examiner.

The shake-up comes five months after several Breitbart staffers departed from the news organization en masse, due to an altercation between Michelle Fields, then a reporter for the site, and Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager.

One of the staffers who resigned, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, reacted to Bannon's new role on his website the Daily Wire, calling it a predictable turn of events


"Bannon is a legitimately sinister figure," Shapiro said. "Many former employees of Breitbart News are afraid of Steve Bannon. He is a vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies.

"Bannon is a smarter version of Trump: He's an aggressive self-promoter who name-drops to heighten his profile and woo bigger names, and then uses those bigger names as stepping stools to his next destination."

He suggested that should Trump lose the election, it would still benefit Bannon, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs banker, who would then likely go into some media business dealing with the celebrity billionaire.

On Twitter, however, Shapiro allowed that Bannon is "smart" and that "he could help Trump's campaign. He could focus him. He could also double him down and blow him up."

Bannon did not return a request for comment from the Examiner.

Fields, the former Breitbart reporter who pressed charges against Trump's former campaign manager for grabbing her arm at a campaign event in March, also reacted on Twitter, referring to a recent trip Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner took abroad.

"Now that we know Bannon is running the show, I think we can understand why Ivanka and Jared checked out & are on vacation during campaign," Fields said.

Breitbart's reputation is most often associated with controversy by many who work in politics and media, though the site enjoys a sizable and loyal audience.

Throughout the 2016 election, people have speculated that Trump, who often provides the outlet with mostly friendly interviews, is a financial backer to Breitbart.

Both Trump and Breitbart executives have denied the rumor.

Lisa De Pasquale, a conservative columnist who contributes to Breitbart, said she thought criticism of the site, especially from conservatives, was misguided.

"It would be great if conservatives could spend just 10 percent of the time they spend focusing on Breitbart to also be outraged about the rest of the media being an arm of the Hillary [Clinton] campaign," she said.

One source who is directly familiar with Bannon and the inner-workings at Breitbart said conversations they had with current and former staffers about the executive's move to the Trump campaign have mostly been the same.

"It's surprising in that it's something we've always joked about and then when it happened, everyone that I knew around Breitbart world had the same reaction. It was, 'Oh, period, my, period, god," said the source.

"But it kind of makes sense," the source added. "It's just being consummated, the relationship between Breitbart and Donald Trump."

Alex Marlow, editor in chief of Breitbart, did not return a request for comment.