Trump Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was reportedly on the verge of resigning if it wasn’t for a GOP mega-donor who convinced him to stick around. Subsequently, Bannon was demoted and stripped of his responsibilities as National Security Advisor while his rumored rival, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, was promoted to lead a “SWAT team” and revamp federal bureaucracy.
In the last 24 hours, tensions between the two have intensified, and associates close to Bannon say he’s ready to take on Kushner and apparently had one thing to say about the situation: “I love gun fights.” That particular quote arrives courtesy of Axios, and the Daily Beast has an even more revealing set of (alleged) labels — “cuck” and “globalist” — given to Kushner by Bannon.
The fighting between Kushner and Bannon has been “nonstop” in recent weeks, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. It’s been an “open secret” that Bannon and Kushner often clash “face-to-face,” according to senior officials.
One official said Bannon has lately complained about Kushner trying to “shiv him and push him out the door” and likened him to a fifth column in the White House.
“[Steve] recently vented to us about Jared being a ‘globalist’ and a ‘cuck’…He actually said ‘cuck,’ as in “cuckservative,’” the administration official told The Daily Beast.
The rivalry reportedly began when Kushner began to have concerns over Bannon’s obsession with deconstructing the government. Kushner fears Bannon will lead his father-in-law and the country down the wrong path and that Bannon’s supporters are out of their minds. On the other hand, nationalists like Bannon fear that Kushner, a former New York Democrat, will take over the administration.
And in a move that seems to add more fuel to the fire rather than solve anything, the two men may be spreading stories about each other to the media. In the last week, Breitbart (the conservative online news site founded by Bannon) has posted several anti-Kushner stories questioning his experience and ethics. Kushner has also been accused of leaking anti-Bannon stories to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough by Roger Stone, the frequent Infowars guest and former Trump campaign advisor.
(via Politico, Axios and The Daily Beast)