Bannon allies ‘blindsided’ by Trump’s remarks (It's about Jared Kushner)

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As the White House power center shifts to more centrist figures — Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and economic adviser Gary Cohn — conservative Bannon fans are lashing out.

Cohn appeared alongside Trump on Tuesday in a meeting with CEOs on restructuring government. Bannon allies believe Cohn’s been undercutting the former Breitbart executive. They refer to Cohn now as “Globalist Gary” or CTC (Carbon Tax Cohn) or an emoji of the globe.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough — whose “Morning Joe” show is frequently watched by the president — said Bannon had been trying to plant false stories about Kushner in the press.

“He’s constantly leaking across Washington, DC, about how important he is to Donald Trump and then he started attacking Jared Kushner and now he’s about to get kicked out of the White House,” Scarborough said Wednesday.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/12/bannon-allies-blindsided-by-trumps-remarks/

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New Front In White House Civil War as Kushner Asserts Authority at NSC

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The Inside Story of the Kushner-Bannon Civil War

West Wing sources come clean about the backstabbing, the bullying, the distrust, and the buzzing flies.

To get a sense of the current West Wing senior staff, I spoke with members of the administration, including some of those closest to the president, as well as with friends and former classmates of the senior team. Nearly all of them asked for anonymity in order to be able to speak freely. The West Wing right now is a place where the ground is always shifting. With the exception of two family members—Trump’s daughter Ivanka, an unpaid assistant to the president, and her husband, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to the president—no one on Trump’s topmost White House staff has been with the new president for very long.

Kushner now occupies the office that is physically closest to the Oval Office. Ivanka Trump has taken on an official role despite her initial intention to simply be “a daughter.” The appointees who have been championed by Ivanka and Jared seem at the moment to be on the rise—no surprise to some. “There is an asymmetry here. You can’t compare family members to other staffers,” the West Wing veteran told me. “You aren’t going to fire your son-in-law or your daughter.” A close associate of Trump’s narrowed that safe zone even further: “Everyone is dispensable, except one person: Ivanka.”

No one has been secure in his or her position. Trump’s initial selection for national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned after misleading White House officials about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Six weeks after his departure, he offered to testify before Congress, possibly about his former colleagues, in exchange for immunity. Next up was Kellyanne Conway, who was effectively sidelined. Then it was Bannon’s turn. “I’m not sure Steve does a lot of actual work,” said one person in the Trump circle shortly before Bannon was removed from the National Security Council, a position he had enjoyed for fewer than 10 weeks.

Reince Priebus, who represents the ever unpopular but ever essential establishment wing of the Republican Party, appeared to be on the ropes for a while but seems safe for now. “Reince isn’t going anywhere,” a senior administration official told me. Priebus has discovered, according to another senior administration official, that “it’s much better to try to be the solid chief of staff than aligned with someone.” Priebus, who is a friend of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, an erstwhile Trump critic, was seen as a necessary evil by the “movement” people. But the failure to repeal Obamacare left Priebus badly wounded.

Kushner’s domain, while ever expanding in its responsibilities, is a small nook that the president frequently passes. Priebus has one of the larger offices in the West Wing, the corner office that comes with his position. Bannon has the office between Kushner and Priebus. Around the corner is the office of Vice President Mike Pence—one of the few senior people with real government experience. Upstairs, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, occupies Valerie Jarrett’s old office. Ivanka Trump has a permanent office on the same floor. So does Stephen Miller, a former aide to Jeff Sessions when he was in the Senate, and the youngest of the senior West Wing staff.



http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/jared-kushner-steve-bannon-white-house-civil-war

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Wall Street Banker Gary Cohn moving Trump Toward Moderate Policies

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“There’s sex scandals people are sitting on,” Cernovich said. “All the gossip and drama and stuff that might be a little more personal is going to get leaked.”

Trump mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, Bannon’s chief patron, spent much of Friday at the offices of Cambridge Analytica — a data firm in which her family is invested and on whose board Bannon sat before joining the White House — exploring potential gigs for Bannon should he be fired, according to The New York Times.

Cernovich speculated that Bannon could, with the help of Cambridge Analytica’s data, move from the personal to the political by identifying his enemies’ most vulnerable allies in Congress and encouraging challengers to run for their seats. “There will be big primary campaigns against them,” Cernovich said. “It will be Eric Cantor-style warfare.”

Several people familiar with Bannon’s modus operandi said he would be unlikely to take on Trump directly, preferring instead to shift blame toward others while leaving the door open to a rapprochement with the president — at least at first.

“In Steve’s dream scenario, he would depart, things would fall apart even more so, and Trump would beg him to come back to fix it,” Bardella said.

Otherwise, Trump could eventually find himself directly in Bannon’s cross hairs, some said.

“We would see House and Senate races in 2018 to, you know, go after Trump’s agenda,” said internet troll Charles Johnson, an ally of Bannon who worked for him at Breitbart. “Everything would slow down. His presidency would essentially be over. Bannon is more than just a man. He is honestly something of an idea because he represents something that both the establishment and the left-wing media hate.”

In years past, Bannon produced several political documentaries, an experience that one Breitbart insider suggested he could call on in a scorched-earth campaign against Trump.

“He does have skills, like high-end skills,” said the insider. “One of his high-end skills is he could actually put together a documentary. What if he came out with something before the 2018 midterms, ‘Where Trump Went Wrong’?”

If it does come to open conflict with the president himself, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart tech editor hired by Bannon who often calls Trump a “God Emperor” and “Daddy,” made no bones about where his loyalties lie.

“It will be my very great honor to manage the Bannon 2020 campaign,” he said, before sending over three mock logos for the hypothetical presidential run.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/donald-trump-steve-bannon-breitbart-215026