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It doesn't take a mind-reader to interpret that as a vote of no confidence. Members of the Bannon coterie in the White House were said to be shocked.
Veterans of earlier White Houses faulted Bannon for not trying to build relationships with people who could be his allies in the West Wing. When trouble came, who would go to bat for him? But a bigger problem was revealed by Trump's observation that Bannon had only joined Trump late in the campaign.
In Chairman Mao's China, veterans of the Long March held a special status; they had been with the Great Helmsman for the entire journey. The situation is much the same in any American political operation, where candidates value people who have been with them all the way. In TrumpWorld, that's nobody — outside the president's family and a few assistants from Trump's company.
Trump named Bannon chief executive of the campaign on Aug. 17, 2016. Even though Bannon's Breitbart News had supported Trump for longer, the president is right — that is pretty late in a campaign that began in earnest more than a year and a half earlier. Bannon wasn't there for the Long March.
Of course, other top White House aides, like chief of staff Reince Priebus and spokesman Sean Spicer, were also latecomers, and they were never fully part of the campaign. Not surprisingly, there have been trust issues; no Long March loyalty for them, either.
Thus Trump's focus on the family. After dispatching sons Don and Eric to run the business, Trump formally brought daughter Ivanka and Kushner into the White House power structure. (The president sought and received a Justice Department opinion arguing that the White House is exempt from federal anti-nepotism law.)
And Trump began to pile jobs on Kushner. The Middle East peace portfolio. Point of contact for foreign leaders. Tackling the opioid crisis. Heading the Office of American Innovation. "No human being can do all that stuff," says a Republican White House veteran.
When Bannon appeared ready for a "gunfight" with Kushner, eyes rolled across Washington. Who was Bannon kidding? "He's picked a fight with the only person he can't beat," said a top GOP politico close to the White House. And it didn't take a top GOP politico to figure that in the end, family will win.
At least, family will win in a fight versus Bannon or any of Trump's other hires, no matter how initially infatuated Trump might be with them. In the long run, though, it might not be correct to say Kushner, even with his special place as the husband of Trump's favorite daughter, cannot be fired. It might be more accurate to say he will be the last fired.
When Bill Clinton's White House went off the rails in the spring of 1993, Clinton tried to recover, barely more than 100 days in office, by hiring the veteran Republican political operator David Gergen. The addition helped smooth things a bit, in part because it showed Clinton was willing to reach outside his circle to help run the government.
Trump will probably have to do that too. (Reach outside his circle, that is, not specifically hire Gergen, which would cause some Republicans to leap from tall buildings.) The president will have to entrust with power a new set of Republicans who weren't on the Long March and who aren't related to him by blood or marriage. It's coming, sooner or later.
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