Jared Kushner's growing portfolio within the Trump administration has pitted him and his allies against the populist operatives who helped elect his father-in-law president.
"Right now you have so many divided camps," a source close to the administration told the Washington Examiner, describing Kushner, loyalists from the campaign and transplants from the Republican National Committee as separate factions in the White House. "Team Trump and Team RNC, they don't like each other. Team Trump doesn't respect Team RNC."
Early whispers about the battle lines between those loyal to chief of staff Reince Priebus and allies of chief strategist Steve Bannon have given way to a showdown between Bannon and Kushner, a senior adviser from a Democratic family who is married to Ivanka Trump.
Trump himself at times has drawn from pragmatic centrism and the right-wing nationalism associated with Bannon in arriving at political positions. But internal struggles have some inside the president's orbit worried that insufficiently committed advisers will dilute the platform Trump ran on last year.
Sources said the ascension of Kushner has even created a detente between Priebus and Bannon as they square off against the "West Wing Democrats," a group that includes Kushner and chief economic adviser Gary Cohn.
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05.05.2024