White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that President Trump remains “confident” in his senior West Wing staff despite the mounting tension between his son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
“This is the same group with the same ideologies [and] the same strengths that came together to win a campaign,” Spicer told reporters. “Everybody that came into this administration, while they might have a personal view on an action or issue, they understood and understand the president’s agenda.”
Kushner, a centrist New Yorker and the husband of Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, is rumored to have pushed Trump to threaten outreach to Democrats following the failure of the GOP’s healthcare bill last month. The move amplified concerns among Bannon and his allies that Trump is abandoning the campaign promises he made to his supporters.
But Spicer denied that such changes are taking place, claiming that much of the media’s coverage has been “overblown” and “gets a little more sensational than it really is.”
“[Trump] understands that we have some pretty smart, talented individuals that are opinionated on a lot of subjects, but that our battles and policy differences need to be behind closed doors,” he said.
Spicer continued, “He is completely aware of the talents we have… and he fully believes that they are going to push forward to advance his agenda.”
The comments come days after Trump reportedly called a meeting between himself, Kushner and Bannon, while the two aides were down at Mar-a-Lago, and demanded that they work out their differences.
Sources told the Washington Examiner last week that Bannon had formed an alliance with chief of staff Reince Priebus to bolster internal opposition to Kushner’s influence over Trump. Caught in the crosshairs, Priebus was said to be in jeopardy and thus helped orchestrate the meeting between the president and his two colleagues.
A White House official later characterized reports of a staff shakeup as “erroneous gossip.”
Spicer echoed that sentiment on Monday, telling reporters that Trump “doesn’t want a monolithically kind of thought process going through the White House.”
“Whether it’s [Syria], healthcare, tax reform, trade, he’s got a diverse set of opinions here,” Spicer said. “He is completely aware of the talents we have… and he fully believes that they are going to push forward to advance his agenda.”
