For more than a week, reporters have been circling the narrative that there could be big changes ahead inside the White House, driven by conflict between the “Bannon camp” and the “Kushner camp,” referring to President Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner
Axios’ Mike Allen wants to be your guide through Trump’s messy, dysfunctional and gossipy White House
The groups trying to curry President Trump’s favor go way beyond Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty
“There’s lots more camps,” Axios co-founder Mike Allen said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka. “It’s a long list.”
On the new podcast, Allen said Trump has structured his White House the same way he structured his business, with “competing centers of power.”
“In addition to [Bannon and Kushner], you have the Kellyanne [Conway] camp, with direct access to him,” he said. “The president likes having her there because she often gives him different advice than the guys do. You have the Ivanka [Trump] camp and you have Gary Cohn, the economic adviser, who has much more sway than typical. We’ve named all these camps and we haven’t even gotten to the person who’s technically in charge: The chief of staff, Reince Priebus.”
You can listen to the new podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
Allen, who is known for his access to power players and decrypts their thoughts for readers via a daily newsletter at Axios, has been predicting a major shake-up, which could oust Priebus, Bannon or both.
“What we’re seeing is the president thinking he needs to make some changes,” Allen said. “He spends a lot of time calling people. He loves his cellphone, calling other people on their phones. And as he calls around, often at night, people are saying, ‘You need to do something differently.’”
“He wants to win,” he added. “On health care and other issues, he hasn’t been winning. That’s one of the reasons he’s looking at changes, looking at responsibilities being moved around. Are we paying a price for this understaffed White House, which is partly their fault, partly not? We’re in an exciting time because as they head toward 100 days on April 29, they definitely are looking at, ‘Should we make more changes? Should we bring in more people?’”
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
