Civil War Breaks Out Inside The Trump White House-- Bannon Struggles To Survive

Which Bannon acolyte leaked the story yesterday that Ivanka Trump met secretly with Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards a couple weeks after Trump's failed inauguration ceremony? After all, this is very much what the Bannon camp means when they scream about how the White House has devolved into a war between "nationalists and the West Wing Democrats." We write a lot about the Republican civil war, but this White House civil war is an entirely different, albeit no less bloody, battle for power.

Alex Isenstadt, right in the heart of the Beltway, dared call it a civil war today, which he described as between "Trump loyalists and establishment-minded Republicans," noting also that it "is escalating throughout the federal government-- and increasingly the president’s allies are losing." The Trump "originals" (primarily right-wing nuts and overt racists who had volunteered to work for his crackpot campaign when few others were willing to do so) are complaining that "they'd been shut out of meetings and targeted with career-destroying leaks. In recent weeks, a number of longtime Trump supporters have abruptly quit, saying they felt the administration had been overtaken by the same establishment they worked to defeat." One typical Trump racist slob who had been forced to resign after making slurs on social media told Isenstadt that 'no one cares what happens to the people who worked for the campaign or who have loyalty to the president. The swamp is winning the battle."

Cabinet heads are complaining the Trump originals who were stuffed willy-nilly into jobs have no experience or abilities to work in their departments and they want them out based on competency.

[S]ome originals are beginning to wonder why they followed Trump to Washington at all. Some have become so insecure about their standing that they are regularly calling the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which oversees administration hiring, to ask about their employment status.

"There are people who moved here and signed a year lease,” said one longtime campaign staffer. “They got nothing for their loyalty to Trump."

"We're pissed off. We're angry," this person said. "There are people who can't even look us in the eye because they know they’re [screwing] us."

For originals, though, it's been a long and frustrating road. Many of them imagined themselves in West Wing jobs after Trump's improbable victory. But, in a conference call with senior Trump aide Rick Dearborn just before Christmas, they were told that White House jobs would be hard to come by. Instead, they were wanted for beachhead teams.

After the call, campaign staffers said they were getting short shrift. They wondered why some people who’d been less than supportive of Trump were getting plum West Wing positions.

Now, as they fight for survival at Cabinet agencies, some are wondering if their days working for the president are numbered.

“A lot of us have lost hope and are looking for another gig,” said one Trump campaign staffer now working at a federal agency. “And that’s the sad part, we’re being pushed aside for people who don’t give a shit about Donald Trump.”

Over at the Trump originals headquarters in the fever swamp of the radical right, they haven't started an anti-Semitic campaign against Kushner-in-law yet but... that's coming. Yesterday Roger Stone, on air with deranged psychopath Alex Jones, accused Kushner-in-law of leaking anti-Bannon material to Joe Scarborough. Alex Jones responded that he didn't want to "run Jared down" because he's a "good looking guy." Recently Stone told Alex Jones that someone attempted to kill him by t-boning his car. Stone went on InfoWars before going to the hospital. "I am a consistent critic of the 'Deep State'-- that's why I think I'm targeted," Stone said on the show. Beats the hard work of actually governing, huh?

Bannon is now making no bones that he's gunning for Kushner-in-law. He even called him a "cuck" and a "globalist" behind his back. I'm not certain which is worse in right-wing-lunatic world.

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.

“Cuckservative,” a portmanteau of “cuckold” and “conservative,” has become a favorite slur on the right, used like a sexually and racially charged version of “RINO,” a Republican In Name Only. “Globalist” is a term typically used by nationalist, pro-Trump right-wingers against political opponents; however, the term has also come under fire for at times carrying anti-Semitic tones. (Kushner is Jewish.)

Bannon is a self-described “nationalist” and long-time Republican, while Kushner was, until his father-in-law ran for president, a lifelong liberal and a Democratic donor.

“There’s a big fight [going on],” one senior official said. “It’s all about policy. There’s tension [between them] on trade, health care, immigration, taxes, [terrorism]—you name it.”

..."Steve thinks Jared is worse than a Democrat, basically," another official close to Bannon said. "[Steve] has a very specific vision for what he believes, and what he shares [ideologically] with Trump. And he has for a long time now seen [Jared] as a major obstacle to achieving that."