After just over two months in the White House, Donald Trump is already looking to make major changes to his administration. With reported in-fighting, two of the president's top advisers could soon be on their way out.
Trump's shake up
Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the decision to remove Chief Strategist Steve Bannon from his position on the National Security Counsel. Bannon was reportedly irate over the move, which was pushed by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Bannon and Kushner don't see eye to eye, and have had issues behind the scenes for some time.
The tension became so great that Bannon allegedly threatened to quit if the move was made, but decided to stay on in the end. In the aftermath, Breitbart News, where Bannon was previously employed, started to run anti-Kushner pieces in an apparent retaliation. As reported by the New York Daily News, and originally Axios, on April 7, the president is preparing to make a change.
According to the report in Axios, Donald Trump is making plans to move on from Steve Bannon, as well as his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, though nothing is currently "set in stone." An aide close to the situation confirmed that "Things are happening," but also noted that it's "unclear the president's willing to pull that trigger." Bannon first joined the team back in August when he was brought on board as the campaign's CEO.
Following the election win last November, the former head of Breitbart News was bumped up to a position in the White House, which quickly led to backlash from critics who have accused Bannon of being a "white nationalist."
.@mikeallen reports it's "when" not "if" Trump will replace Priebus. And, there's supposedly a short list. https://t.co/PFTThBOoyr
— Sam R. Hall (@samrhall) April 7, 2017
Issues with Reince Priebus have been ongoing for sometime, but only got worse after the Republican health care bill failed to get enough support last month.
Donald Trump reportedly put much of the blame for the bill's failure on House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as Priebus. Several names have been leaked as to who could replace Priebus, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, current economic adviser Gary Cohen, businessman Wayne Berman, and David Urban.
Moving forward
While Donald Trump and his supporters were elated after pulling off the upset win over Hillary Clinton, they've been dealing with non-stop controversy ever since. Whether it's internal struggles and in-fighting, or backlash over policy and rhetoric, the billionaire real estate mogul is off to rocky start in the White House.
