Bannon has felt the brunt of general frustrations surrounding the security council. In the early days of the administration, he elevated himself, without Trump’s knowledge, to the principals committee, a move that infuriated the president. Bannon insisted, along with Kushner, on keeping certain staffers over the objection of McMaster.
But the ultimate argument against him, said one person with knowledge of the situation, is that “Bannon isn’t making ‘Dad’ look good.”…
Some friends of both Bannon and Kushner, who talk daily and still have a cordial rapport, say the tensions are mostly driven by policy.
In February, for instance, a group of former Republican Cabinet secretaries met with Cohn to pitch him on the idea of a carbon tax, arguing it would help reduce fossil fuel emissions while also addressing budget issues. Some left the meeting believing Cohn was open to the idea. Bannon was furious when he caught wind of the proposal, saying the White House was veering too far from Trump’s core nationalist principles as it molded its economic policy.
A meeting last week at the White House at the behest of Kushner and Cohn to discuss health care with Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s health-care bill, was another fault line. The mere existence of the staff-level discussion with Emanuel — who had previously met with Trump three times — raised concerns among conservatives that the president was serious about his threat to work with Democrats after his initial health-care proposal failed.
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