The Washington Post reports: Stephen K. Bannon — the combative architect of the nationalistic strategy that delivered President Trump to the White House — now finds himself losing ground in an internecine battle within the West Wing that pits the “Bannonites” against a growing and powerful faction of centrist financiers led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Less than 100 days into Trump’s chaotic presidency, the White House is splintering over policy issues ranging from taxes to trade. The daily tumult has created an atmosphere of tension and panic around the president, leaving aides fearing for their jobs and cleaving former allies into rivals sniping at one another in the media.

The infighting spilled into full view this week after Trump removed Bannon from the National Security Council’s “principals committee,” a reshuffling that left the president’s chief strategist less fully involved in the administration’s daily national security policy while further empowering Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s new national security adviser.

Bannon, an unkempt iconoclast, has generally chafed at the transition from firebomb campaigning to more modulated governing and for weeks has vented about the possibility of quitting, one person close to him said.

This account of the latest West Wing turmoil comes from interviews with more than 20 White House officials and people close to those in the administration, many of whom requested anonymity to offer candid assessments. [Continue reading…]