Feuding Trump aides meet and agree to end 'palace intrigue' - source

[rooster59]

Feuding Trump aides meet and agree to end 'palace intrigue' - source

By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

 

U.S. President Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 6, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

 

PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top White House aides Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met and agreed to "bury the hatchet" over their differences, a senior administration official said on Saturday, in a bid to stop infighting that has distracted from President Donald Trump's message.

 

Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, and Kushner, an influential adviser and Trump's son-in-law, met on Friday at the request of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus who told them that if they have any policy differences, they should air them internally, the official said.

 

The development at the president's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, came at the end of what has been a relatively smooth week for Trump.

 

Trump ordered airstrikes against Syrian targets that drew praise in many parts of the world and staged an error-free summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, complete with his wife, Melania, wearing a red dress to symbolize the main color of the Chinese flag.

 

Priebus' message to Bannon and Kushner was to "stop with the palace intrigue" and focus on the president's agenda, the official told Reuters.

 

Both aides left having agreed that it was time to "bury the hatchet and move forward," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Four former advisers to the president said Trump is accustomed to chaos in his decades-long career as a real estate developer but that even he has grown weary of the infighting.

 

"He's got a long fuse for that kind of thing," said one former adviser. "I imagine he has gotten tired of this."

 

The White House dismissed persistent talk that Trump might be on the verge of a staff shakeup. "The only thing we are shaking up is the way Washington operates as we push the president's aggressive agenda forward," spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.

 

The Trump White House has been a hotbed of palace intrigue since he took office on Jan. 20. But the drama has intensified after the failed effort to get healthcare legislation approved by the House of Representatives and the rocky rollout of an executive order attempting to temporarily ban citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States.

 

Bannon, former chief of the conservative news organization Breitbart News, has been at odds with Kushner and Gary Cohn, the head of the White House National Economic Council, an administration official and the four former advisers said.

 

The former Trump advisers said Kushner, husband of Trump daughter Ivanka Trump, is trying to tug the president into a more mainstream position, while Bannon is trying to keep aflame the nationalist fervor that carried Trump to his unexpected election victory on Nov. 8.

 

Bannon is getting some of the blame for the administration's early stumbles because, one former adviser said, "The president demands results."In what was viewed as a sign of Bannon's declining influence, he was removed from his seat on the National Security Council this week. Administration officials said this was done at the urging of national security adviser H.R. McMaster, with whom Bannon had clashed.

 

Some of the former Trump advisers said Priebus is at fault for not gaining control of the feuding and said Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive, would be a candidate to replace him.

 

Priebus is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and bucked many in his party by putting the weight of the RNC behind Trump when it was clear he would be the party's presidential nominee.

 

“"Reince is chief of staff," said a source familiar with the issue. "He's not going anywhere."

 

Republican strategist Charlie Black, who has known Trump for 30 years, said he did not think a shakeup was imminent and that Trump's White House reflects his traditional approach to running his business.

 

"He's always had a spokes-to-the-wheel management style," said Black. "He wants people with differing views among the spokes."

 

Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, who got pushed out in a shakeup himself after roughly a year into the job, said it appears that inside the Trump White House there's a struggle for "the soul and brain of the president."

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-04-09

[Andaman Al]

3 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

it appears that inside the Trump White House there's a struggle for "the soul and brain of the president."

That could be a struggle that goes on for some time as so far evidence would show that the President has neither.

[Rob13]

Pretty sure stirring up fights  among his minions is trump's management style.....or lack thereof.

[craigt3365]

14 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Bannon, former chief of the conservative news organization Breitbart News, has been at odds with Kushner and Gary Cohn, the head of the White House National Economic Council, an administration official and the four former advisers said.

 

The former Trump advisers said Kushner, husband of Trump daughter Ivanka Trump, is trying to tug the president into a more mainstream position, while Bannon is trying to keep aflame the nationalist fervor that carried Trump to his unexpected election victory on Nov. 8.

Bannon has already been demoted.  This "fight" with Kushner and Ivanka is one he won't win.  Maybe we'll be lucky and see this nut booted out of the White House.  The election is over, time to run the country.

[mamypoko]

I amsorry if this is off topic but can anyone confirm if Trumps mouth is in fact a butthole transplant. Look at that pic

[Rob13]

3 minutes ago, mamypoko said:

I amsorry if this is off topic but can anyone confirm if Trumps mouth is in fact a butthole transplant. Look at that pic

 

It's not a transplant, his heads so far up his a##e that it just looks that way.

[humqdpf]

The only central point that this story gets wrong is that there is only one palace intrigue. I would imagine that there is a whole forrest of them as various personalities have factions formed around them but parts of those factions secretly belong to other factions with so many focussed on their own agendas that it is hard to get anyone to focus 100% on the ever wavering strategies of the president.

[mikebike]

5 minutes ago, humqdpf said:

The only central point that this story gets wrong is that there is only one palace intrigue. I would imagine that there is a whole forrest of them as various personalities have factions formed around them but parts of those factions secretly belong to other factions with so many focussed on their own agendas that it is hard to get anyone to focus 100% on the ever wavering strategies of the president.

Of course there are other intrigues, but it seems the major battle is over who gets the ear of he-who-listens-to-the-last-person-in-the-room. Kushner reps the side of traditional corrupt corporatists whose main thrust is unfettered self-enrichment and Bannon reps the side of corrupt alt-right nationalists whose main thrust is unfettered, white cultural hegemony.

[ilostmypassword]

3 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Of course there are other intrigues, but it seems the major battle is over who gets the ear of he-who-listens-to-the-last-person-in-the-room. Kushner reps the side of traditional corrupt corporatists whose main thrust is unfettered self-enrichment and Bannon reps the side of corrupt alt-right nationalists whose main thrust is unfettered, white cultural hegemony.

You're being too kind to Bannon who also wants to slash taxes on the rich and eviscerate regulations on Wall Street.

[MarkusAUST]

Whenever you have extremists, you have extreme views, which are hard to reconcile with normal people.

Bannon is a really nasty piece of work, that has no place in Government. The sooner Donald realises this and gets rid of him the better.

If he could sack himself at the same time, there would really be cause for celebration.

[mikebike]

1 minute ago, ilostmypassword said:

You're being too kind to Bannon who also wants to slash taxes on the rich and eviscerate regulations on Wall Street.

Which BOTH sides want to do but their motivations are entirely different. Corporatists want it because of greed, Bannon wants it because he knows it paves the way to greater control of the 'others'.

[mikebike]

BTW - I do not see Bannon winning the fight with Kushner. Despots love the security of surrounding themselves with family members in a dynastic fantasy...

 

Also Kushner's faith must really eat at Bannon... in his mind he is losing to the 'globalists'...

[ilostmypassword]

14 minutes ago, mikebike said:

Which BOTH sides want to do but their motivations are entirely different. Corporatists want it because of greed, Bannon wants it because he knows it paves the way to greater control of the 'others'.

Bannon is backed by the Mercers. Look them up and then tell me again that greed isn't a big part of it.

[mikebike]

Just now, ilostmypassword said:

Bannon is backed by the Mercers. Look them up and then tell me again that greed isn't a big part of it.

Understood, but for Bannon greed is a subplot. His overwhelming ideology is ethnic nationalism. That, not greed, is what has defined Steve's life and work.

[ilostmypassword]

1 minute ago, mikebike said:

Understood, but for Bannon greed is a subplot. His overwhelming ideology is ethnic nationalism. That, not greed, is what has defined Steve's life and work.

That's what he would have you believe. But it's overwhelmingly significant, that Bannon, who has modeled his approach on European ethnic nationalist movements, differs absolutely from them in this regard. They support redistribution of wealth and controls on the private financial system, whereas he most definitely does not. His is really the more typical republican approach that gets your target voters upset about emotional issues but when it comes to money, it's all about enriching the rich. In politics, if you want the truth, follow the money.

[elgordo38]

4 hours ago, Rob13 said:

Pretty sure stirring up fights  among his minions is trump's management style.....or lack thereof.

You voted for a "Green Acres" style of government you got it or should it be the "Beverly Hillbillies"

[elgordo38]

Make dueling legal again and let them fight it out like the artistocracy they think they are. 

[boomerangutang]

                           Trump is a flawed character and has such poor judge of character.  Look at some of the people who influence him:   most are alt-right radio shouters, full of conspiracy theories.  I have zero faith in Trump.  I honestly don't think he even wants what's best for Americans.  He primarily wants whatever will fatten his (and his family's) bank accounts.    #2 is his image.  He's a card-carrying member of the Actors Guild.  Image and acting are the wind that blows his sails.  

 

                Anyone in his inner circle is a reflection of Trump's flawed character and limited mental abilities. 

[boomerangutang]

24 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

You voted for a "Green Acres" style of government you got it or should it be the "Beverly Hillbillies"

The Beverly Hillbillies were somewhat funny.   Trump and his insiders are like Beverly Hillbillies if they drank nothing but india ink for a week.

 

Bannon is like a 'before' picture for a skin cream commercial.

 

Priebus is like a failed applicant for a Ronald McDonald job.

 

Kushner is like a storefront manaquin which has 128 kb ram inserted into his brain slot - in order to make him appear human.

 

 

Edited April 9, 2017 by boomerangutang

[elgordo38]

2 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

The Beverly Hillbillies were somewhat funny.   Trump and his insiders are like Beverly Hillbillies if they drank nothing but india ink for a week.

 

Bannon is like a 'before' picture for a skin cream commercial.

Nice add on. 

[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, boomerangutang said:

The Beverly Hillbillies were somewhat funny.   Trump and his insiders are like Beverly Hillbillies if they drank nothing but india ink for a week.

 

Bannon is like a 'before' picture for a skin cream commercial.

 

Priebus is like a failed applicant for a Ronald McDonald job.

 

Kushner is like a storefront manaquin which has 128 kb ram inserted into his brain slot - in order to make him appear human.

 

 

You must have been a psychiatrist in another life. These guys are definitely square pegs in square holes. 

[Thaidream]

Donald Trump is a meglomaniac  and as such a compulsive narcissist who has to constantly be assured by his minions that he is right even when he lies. There is no doubt this man has a personality disorder and as such is a danger to America and the World.

The people around him are nothing more than sycophants attempting to influence Trump to chart policies that they want.

The sad thing is that none of them including Trump will give the American people what Americans want and need which is real single payer healthcare for everyone; free college tuition; a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor and middle class and a foreign policy based upon American ideals and not the bombastic alt right who revels in a missile strike on Syria espousing the theme 'America is back.'.  Good Lord- every time I think it can't get worse- it does.

[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, ilostmypassword said:

That's what he would have you believe. But it's overwhelmingly significant, that Bannon, who has modeled his approach on European ethnic nationalist movements, differs absolutely from them in this regard. They support redistribution of wealth and controls on the private financial system, whereas he most definitely does not. His is really the more typical republican approach that gets your target voters upset about emotional issues but when it comes to money, it's all about enriching the rich. In politics, if you want the truth, follow the money.

As far as the voters go he turned into a lemmings leader.

[elgordo38]

1 minute ago, Thaidream said:

Donald Trump is a meglomaniac  and as such a compulsive narcissist who has to constantly be assured by his minions that he is right even when he lies. There is no doubt this man has a personality disorder and as such is a danger to America and the World.

The people around him are nothing more than sycophants attempting to influence Trump to chart policies that they want.

The sad thing is that none of them including Trump will give the American people what Americans want and need which is real single payer healthcare for everyone; free college tuition; a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor and middle class and a foreign policy based upon American ideals and not the bombastic alt right who revels in a missile strike on Syria espousing the theme 'America is back.'.  Good Lord- every time I think it can't get worse- it does.

Another pass the Tylenol read. 

[klauskunkel]

8 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Top White House aides Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met and agreed to "bury the hatchet" over their differences

Did the president tell them to wai each other?

[boomerangutang]

                   Bury the hatchet?   How deep - 1 inch?  Where?  In the WH rose garden?

If a hatchet isn't available, a lot of damage can be done with a 7" long silver letter-opener.

 

                  I say give them a lot of hatchets, and straight razors and cherry bomb firecrackers, and attack-trained dogs, and let them fight it out - right there in the Oval Office.  I can picture blood and chunks of elder men's flesh getting flicked everywhere, dogs eating other dogs, and Trump calmly tweeting in the corner during commercials for Ex-Lax during the Fox News breaks.

[Srikcir]

12 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Priebus' message to Bannon and Kushner was to "stop with the palace intrigue"

Priebus is not above the fray.

Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus’s War for the White House

http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/steve-bannon-and-reince-priebuss-war-for-the-white-house

Priebus has largely failed Trump as a political strategist to deliver accomplishments and faces possible "early retirement" from the White House. A clean sweep of Trump's inner sanctum with moderate and experienced Republicans would best serve Trump and the USA.

[boomerangutang]

                    Trump is setting tough goals for the sheeple who surround him.  Trump comes up with a flawed policy, and then delegates one or more of his honchos to go out and get it passed.   He might as well declare blue is red or water is dry, and then direct his minions to go out and get congress to agree.

 

Nobody asked me, but I would hate to work in Trump's WH.  They couldn't pay me $10,000/day to do the dirty work required.   P.S. I like Washington D.C.   I resided there up until age 23.  For several years, I fronted one of the best bar bands in the city.   I'm only saying that because; I wouldn't mind working in D.C. (it's got many attributes) if the work was fulfilling and/or for a good cause.  But I could never get behind a harmful-to-America dufus like Trump. 

 

 

[boomerangutang]

Go to 19 minute mark, and listen to pearls of wisdom for the next few minutes.