1 big thing: Trump kneecaps Bannon Allies of Steve Bannon fear the White House chief strategist is about to be pushed out, following the posting last night of an ominous interview with Trump by Michael Goodwin, a New York Post columnist and someone the president has been comfortable with over many years. The brutal headline: "Trump won't definitively say he still backs Bannon." 
 
 "Trump won't definitively say he still backs Bannon." What Trump said: "I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late ... I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn't know Steve. I'm my own strategist and it wasn't like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary. ... Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will." 
 
 "I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late ... I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn't know Steve. I'm my own strategist and it wasn't like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary. ... Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will." The instant fallout: Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon allies inside and outside the White House were taken by surprise when Goodwin's column posted, and are distraught. Bannon allies are bitter about the role they believe economic adviser Gary Cohn has played in undercutting their guy to POTUS. In private conversations, they call him "Globalist Gary." In text messages, the shorthand is CTC (Carbon Tax Cohn) or one simple emoji: 🌎. 
 
 Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon allies inside and outside the White House were taken by surprise when Goodwin's column posted, and are distraught. Bannon allies are bitter about the role they believe economic adviser Gary Cohn has played in undercutting their guy to POTUS. In private conversations, they call him "Globalist Gary." In text messages, the shorthand is CTC (Carbon Tax Cohn) or one simple emoji: 🌎. What got Bannon in trouble: Axios AM is told that President Trump didn't like the stories about Bannon as the Svengali, or leaks against Jared and Ivanka, or planted stories that he blamed Bannon for. It was less than 10 weeks ago that Bannon appeared on the cover of TIME as "THE GREAT MANIPULATOR," with the inside story asking if he was "the Second Most Powerful Man in the World." 
 
 Axios AM is told that President Trump didn't like the stories about Bannon as the Svengali, or leaks against Jared and Ivanka, or planted stories that he blamed Bannon for. It was less than 10 weeks ago that Bannon appeared on the cover of TIME as "THE GREAT MANIPULATOR," with the inside story asking if he was "the Second Most Powerful Man in the World." Bannon's mistake: He did little to build alliances and a personal retinue within the White House, while his rivals did the opposite. So he wound up isolated in "West Wing Survivor.' 
 
 He did little to build alliances and a personal retinue within the White House, while his rivals did the opposite. So he wound up isolated in "West Wing Survivor.' The huge risk for Trump: The base (including Breitbart) remains very attached to Bannon, and would go crazy if he were axed. And does the president lose his psychic connection to the issue palette that helped put him in power? 
 
 The base (including Breitbart) remains very attached to Bannon, and would go crazy if he were axed. And does the president lose his psychic connection to the issue palette that helped put him in power? What it means: Swan points out that if Bannon goes, there's no one of similar status in the White House to push the nationalist agenda to Trump – and more centrist figures are already ascendant (Jivanka, Gary Cohn). Without Bannon's voice, this becomes a much more conventional White House. It would be an acute normalizing of the staff, although no one can normalize Trump. 
 
 2. Tweet du jour Maggie later added: "Trump loves the shiny new object, whether it's a thing or a person. Right now that shiny new object is Cohn." 
 
 3. A chance for Putin, Tillerson diplomacy in Moscow Rebecca Zisser / Axios Steve LeVine, a former foreign correspondent who joined Axios from Quartz this week, writes: "Putin knows that he has a problem in Syria — he wants to retain Russia's military presence there, but is not wedded to President Bashar al-Assad. Therefore, he will be looking for a face-saving way out of the current crisis." Get smart: Both presidents have extremely sober-minded senior aides who understand that the harsh exchange of rhetoric between the countries could escalate out of control. Same lead story in all Big 3 papers ... N.Y. Times: "White House Says Russia Is Engaged in Covering Up Syrians' Chemical Attack" ... WSJ: "U.S. Accuses Russia of Cover-Up" ... WashPost: "U.S. disputes Russia's claims." 
 
 4. Trump's talk big, act small White House Rebecca Zisser / Axios Visitors to Steve Bannon's West Wing office are often taken by his whiteboard, covered with promises from the campaign trail. Trump's chief strategist checks off tasks when they're accomplished, but there are some pledges on Bannon's whiteboard that nobody believes will be met — not in the first 100 days, and in some conspicuous cases, not ever. Read Axios' Jonathan Swan on "Trump's rhetoric vs reality": "The reality looks much smaller, and, as much as Trump would hate to admit it — conventional. Cowen's Chris Krueger raises possibility tax reform delayed to next year: "Base case remains tax relief in late Q4, though potential delay to Q1 18. Will need FY18 Budget to move taxes. So back to Square One on process, policy, and politics. Q1 17 a policy zero." Department of Close Calls ... Kansas City Star: "Republican Ron Estes will be the next congressman from the state of Kansas, but his victory Tuesday night did not come as easily as many expected in the deep-red state. GOP strategists warned in recent days that Democrat James Thompson, a civil rights attorney, was in striking distance ... in the special election to replace Mike Pompeo." 
 
 5. How Spicer's afternoon unraveled Sean Spicer at yesterday's briefing: "You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons. So you have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself is this a country that you and a regime that you want to align yourself with? " Later question: "Sean, thanks. I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify something you said that seems to be gaining some traction right now. 'Hitler didn't even sink to the level of using chemical weapons.' What did you mean by that?" 
 
 "Sean, thanks. I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify something you said that seems to be gaining some traction right now. 'Hitler didn't even sink to the level of using chemical weapons.' What did you mean by that?" Spicer: "I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no — he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing, I mean, there was clearly — I understand your point, thank you. 
 
 "I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no — he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing, I mean, there was clearly — I understand your point, thank you. Q: "I'm just getting — " 
 
 "I'm just getting — " Spicer: "Thank you, I appreciate that. There was not — he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent — into the middle of towns. It was brought —so the use of it — I appreciate the clarification there. That was not the intent." 
 
 "Thank you, I appreciate that. There was not — he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that. But I'm saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent — into the middle of towns. It was brought —so the use of it — I appreciate the clarification there. That was not the intent." Emailed statement to the pool, 40 minutes later, "Clarification on statement from Press Briefing": "In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable." 
 
 40 minutes later, "Clarification on statement from Press Briefing": "In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable." Spicer, a few hours later, to CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "I was obviously trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week, using chemical weapons and gas. Frankly, I mistakenly made an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust, for which, frankly, there is no comparison. And for that, I apologize. It was a mistake to do that." Spicer's job security! @NancyPelosi tweets: "@realDonaldTrump, it's time to fire @PressSec Sean Spicer." 
 
 6. The long view on Trump Rick Perlstein — who has written books on Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan — in N.Y. Times Magazine, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong. A historian of conservatism looks back at how he and his peers failed to anticipate the rise of the president": The 1960s and '70s New York in which Donald Trump came of age, as much as Klan-ridden Indiana in the 1920s or Barry Goldwater's Arizona in the 1950s, was at conservatism's cutting edge, setting the emotional tone for a politics of rage. ... The often-cynical negotiation between populist electioneering and plutocratic governance on the right has long been not so much a matter of policy as it has been a matter of show business. ... [T]he producers of "The Apprentice" carefully crafted a Trump character who was the quintessence of steely resolve and all-knowing mastery. 
 
 7. Drip, drip ... AP break at 5 a.m. ... "Records match some Ukraine ledger payments to ex-Trump aide," by Jack Gillum, Chad Day and Jeff Horowitz: "Last August, a handwritten ledger surfaced in Ukraine with dollar amounts and dates next to the name of Paul Manafort, who was then Donald Trump's campaign chairman. Ukrainian investigators called it evidence of off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party." "Now, financial records ... confirm that at least $1.2 million in payments listed in the ledger next to Manafort's name were actually received by his consulting firm in the United States. They include payments in 2007 and 2009, providing the first evidence that Manafort's firm received at least some money listed in the so-called Black Ledger." Why it matters: "Manafort and his spokesman, Jason Maloni, have maintained the ledger was fabricated and said no public evidence existed that Manafort or others received payments recorded in it." 
 
 8. Re-accommodating United's image, stock price "United faces more questions as dragged passenger hires high-powered attorney" — Chicago Tribune: "David Dao, the passenger at the center of the growing imbroglio, retained a high-powered Chicago personal injury lawyer, Thomas Demetrio. Dao was in a Chicago hospital undergoing treatment for his injuries ... [F]our [U.S.] senators sent several questions about the 'very disturbing' incident." Why it matters ... N.Y. Times front-pager, "Dragging of Passenger Sets Off a Crisis at United": "[T]he videos had already cast an unwelcome light not just on United, but on the airline industry's efforts to maximize profits. As companies push to make money from baggage fees, seat reservations and other services that were once included with a basic plane ticket, the videos added the potential for an even harsher indignity: sitting in a seat with a ticket and getting physically ejected from the airplane." 
 
 9. Will he be back? Amid an advertiser backlash prompted by accusations of harassment, Bill O'Reilly announced on last night's show that he's taking a vacation. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed to Axios AM that "O'Reilly is on a pre-planned vacation and he will return on April 24th." CNN's Dylan Byers says that per "O'Reilly spokesperson Mark Fabiani," the vacation is a family trip that was planned in October, including airline and hotel reservations. Dana Perino is scheduled to fill in for O'Reilly tonight, we're told. Gabe Sherman in New York mag: "Two highly-placed Fox News sources say 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch would like O'Reilly to be permanently taken off the air, while his father Rupert and older brother Lachlan are more inclined to keep him." This news from Monday's Times looks worrisome for Reilly: "21st Century Fox has enlisted the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to investigate at least one accusation of sexual harassment against the Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. ... Wendy Walsh, a former guest on Mr. O'Reilly's show, ... called 21st Century Fox's anonymous hotline last week, prompting the investigation." Why it matters: "Paul Weiss is the same law firm that conducted an internal investigation into Roger Ailes." ||||| On the morning he was being ousted as Donald Trump’s chief strategist last Friday, Steve Bannon had already turned the page. “Why do you sound unfazed?” a friend asked Bannon as news of his demise ricocheted across the web. “Because,” Bannon replied, “we’re going to war.” Hours later, Bannon was calling into the editorial meeting at Breitbart News, rallying his troops to continue the battles he waged inside the White House. “We have a duty to the country to be the vanguard of ‘The Movement,’” he told his staff, according to one person on the call. Bannon’s main targets are the West Wing’s coterie of New York Democrat “globalists”—Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn—as well as the “hawks,” comprised of National Security Adviser H.R McMaster and his deputy, Dina Powell. “He wants to beat their ideas into submission,” Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow told me. “Steve has a lot of things up his sleeve.” 
 
 The chaotic, war-torn West Wing of the past six months will be prologue, but the coming struggles will be as personal as they are ideological, waged not with leaks but with slashing Breitbart banners. On Sunday, Breitbart took renewed aim at McMaster, with a headline claiming he advocated “Quran Kissing.” But most of all, there’s a deep animosity between Bannon and Kushner, amplified by a lack of respect. Bannon finds Kushner’s political instincts highly questionable. “He said Jared is a dope,” one Bannon ally recalled. The two clashed fiercely on personnel decisions and policy debates, both domestic and international, many of which Bannon lost. But Bannon, who was the only West Wing advisor to publicly support the president’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, is especially galled at being scapegoated as an anti-Semite in its wake. “It’s one of the attacks he takes most personally because it’s not true,” a Breitbart staffer told me. Bannon’s allies lay out a more complicated backstory. Bannon, they say, lobbied Trump aggressively to move America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but was blocked by Kushner. And, according to three Bannon allies, Bannon pushed a tougher line against the Palestinians than Kushner did. In May, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited the White House, Bannon stayed home. “I’m not going to breathe the same air as that terrorist,” Bannon texted a friend. 
 
 In the final weeks, Bannon was relentlessly tarred as a prime West Wing leaker, but Bannon’s allies make a similar case about Kushner. Specifically, they believe that Kushner cultivated a relationship with Matt Drudge, who frequently pushed anti-Bannon headlines—“The Total Eclipse of Steve Bannon”; “Bannon ‘Is the Real President”—in the weeks leading up to Trump’s decision to defenestrate him. Bannon also told friends that he believed Kushner encouraged Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch to lobby Trump to fire him. Last week, The New York Times reported that Murdoch told Trump over a private dinner with Kushner that Trump needed to jettison his chief strategist. The Bannon camp believes that Murdoch was especially receptive to Kushner’s lobbying because Murdoch is worried about the rise of Sinclair Broadcasting as a competitor to Fox, and blames Bannon for Trump’s decision so far not to block the Sinclair’s $3.9 billion takeover of Tribune Media in May. 
 
 Bannon has media ambitions to compete with Fox News from the right. Last week in New York, he huddled with his billionaire benefactor, Robert Mercer, and discussed ways to expand Breitbart into TV, sources said. “Television is definitely on the table,” a Bannon adviser told me. A partnership with Sinclair remains a possibility. In recent days, Sinclair’s chief political analyst Boris Epshteyn has spoken with Breitbart editors about ways to form an alliance, one Breitbart staffer said. “All the Sinclair guys are super tight with Breitbart. Imagine if we got together Hannity and O’Reilly and started something?” 
 
 Meanwhile, the next phase has already begun. On Sunday, the website’s lead story was based on a Daily Mail report that said Ivanka was behind Bannon’s removal. “Trump’s daughter Ivanka pushed out Bannon because of his ‘far-right views’ clashing with her Jewish faith,” the article noted. Another piece was headlined: “6 TIMES JAVANKA’S DISPLEASURE WITH POTUS LEAKED TO PRESS.” In his feud with Kushner, Bannon may have a powerful ally: Reince Priebus, also recently departed from the White House with a quiver of grudges. Recently, according to several sources, Bannon has told friends he wants Priebus to give his account of the James Comey firing to special prosecutor Robert Mueller. According to a source close to Priebus, the former chief of staff believes that the decision was made during an early May weekend in Bedminster, where Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Stephen Miller were with the president. Trump returned to the Oval Office on Monday, May 8 and told other aides he intended to fire Comey. 
 
 At Breitbart, Bannon has a brigade of similarly happy warriors. “We’re in a loud bar celebrating the return of our captain!” Breitbart’s Washington editor Matt Boyle told me on Friday night. Breitbart’s defense of Trump has so far helped keep the Russia scandal from gaining traction on the right. But that could swiftly change if Trump, under the influence of Kushner and Cohn, deviates too far from the positions he ran on. If that happens, said one high-level Breitbart staffer, “We’re prepared to help Paul Ryan rally votes for impeachment.” ||||| A Richmond, Va., bookstore owner said he called the police on Saturday after former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon was confronted in his store. 
 
 Nick Cooke, owner of Black Swan Books, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that a woman called Bannon a “piece of trash.” 
 
 The woman then left the store after Cooke said he called 911. 
 
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 “Steve Bannon Stephen (Steve) Kevin BannonHillicon Valley: Ecuador says 'road is clear' for Assange to leave embassy | Panel questioned Bannon on Cambridge Analytica | Trump aide says US knew about arrest of Huawei exec | Judges grill DOJ lawyers on AT&T; merger appeal CIA, climate scientists, and Mueller all show limits of Trump’s authority Don’t get too excited: The US-China truce will be short-lived MORE was simply standing, looking at books, minding his own business. I asked her to leave, and she wouldn’t. And I said, ‘I’m going to call the police if you don’t,’ and I went to call the police and she left,” Cooke said. “And that’s the end of the story.” 
 
 Bannon grew up in Richmond, the newspaper noted. 
 
 The Richmond Police Department confirmed the call was made but the call was canceled before officers responded. 
 
 “We are a bookshop. Bookshops are all about ideas and tolerating different opinions and not about verbally assaulting somebody, which is what was happening,” Cooke said. 
 
 Bannon joins a growing list of political figures associated with President Trump Donald John TrumpFamily says Trump travel ban preventing mother from seeing dying son Saudi Arabia rejects Senate position on Khashoggi killing Five things to know about the Trump inauguration investigation MORE who have been confronted in public in recent weeks. 
 
 Protesters in Kentucky followed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellTrump finds himself isolated in shutdown fight Pelosi faces pressure to act on Saudi Arabia Make the First Step Act a smarter step by opening the risk assessment black box MORE (R-Ky.) to his car while he was leaving a Louisville restaurant on Saturday, threatening to vote him out of office. 
 
 Others, including White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele NielsenFamily of migrant girl who died in federal custody calls for 'transparent and neutral' investigation Former GOP lawmaker on death of 7-year-old migrant girl: Message should be ‘don't make this journey, it will kill you' Young girl's death draws new scrutiny over US treatment of migrants MORE, also have been confronted by protesters for their association with the Trump administration and its policies. ||||| According to a senior White House official, Bannon and Kushner “disagree on everything on policy.” 
 
 “Jared is a liberal Democrat,” the official said, accusing Kushner of trying to limit the role of some in Trump’s orbit—including Bannon, policy aide Stephen Miller, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Domestic Policy Council Director Andrew Bremberg, and Vice President Mike Pence—in making policy. Kushner, the official charged, is trying to “slow-walk” executive orders on trade, for example. 
 
 In response to the official's accusations against Kushner, White House director of strategic communications Hope Hicks said "The information your source provided you is not accurate." 
 
 Bannon told me reports that he was threatening to quit were “absurd.” 
 
 But it’s hard to spin the reality of this White House, which is that people like Kushner and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, whose predecessor Michael Flynn resigned after lying about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, are growing in influence after a turbulent first three months. During that time, Bannon and his allies like Miller have shouldered the blame for some of the administration’s biggest setbacks, like the initial travel ban executive order that was quickly overturned in the federal courts. Kushner recently became charged with a new office tasked with streamlining the government, called the Office of American Innovation, and Bannon’s removal from the NSC principals’ committee was widely interpreted as a win for McMaster. 
 
 “The bottom line on the thing is it’s real, it’s absolutely real,” a Bannon ally outside the White House said of the conflict between Bannon and Kushner, adding that the anti-Bannon forces include not just Kushner, but top economic adviser Gary Cohn and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell as well. 
 
 “Definitely tensions, nothing resolved,” said a source close to Trump, in an email. There are “attempts to clearly define roles. Potus now is engaged in resolving the issues if they can be resolved.” 
 
 “Jared just doesn’t think that Trump will be successful with somebody like Bannon in there,” said one source close to the White House. “I know, for instance, that there have been meetings that Bannon would normally be in and he hasn’t been in recently.” 
 
 Bannon was conspicuously absent from Trump’s joint press conference with the King of Jordan in the Rose Garden on Wednesday. Six top aides sat in on Trump’s interview with The New York Times this week, including Cohn, but Bannon was not listed among them in the transcript of the interview. 
 
 “I think he is in trouble,” said another source with knowledge of the internal workings of the White House. “I think Jared is moving on him.” 
 
 “For whatever reason Bannon seems to be allied with Reince, and Bannon seems to be opposed by Jared,” the source said. ||||| When Stephen K. Bannon reported for work Wednesday, he did not act like a man who had just been publicly humiliated by his boss. 
 
 The White House chief strategist cycled in and out of the Oval Office for meetings with President Trump and took a seat in the front row of the East Room for the afternoon visit of NATO’s secretary general, flanked by some of the very advisers with whom he has been feuding. 
 
 But for Bannon, the day’s routine obscured the reality that he is a marked man — diminished by weeks of battles with the bloc of centrists led by Trump’s daughter and son-in-law and cut down by the president himself, who belittled Bannon in an interview with the New York Post. 
 
 The president’s comments were described by White House officials as a dressing-down and warning shot, though one Bannon friend, reflecting on them Wednesday, likened Bannon to a terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care. 
 
 The man not long ago dubbed the “shadow president” — with singular influence over Trump’s agenda and the workings of the federal government — is struggling to keep his job with his portfolio reduced and his profile damaged, according to interviews Wednesday with 21 of Trump’s aides, confidants and allies. Some colleagues described Bannon as a stubborn recluse who had failed to build a reservoir of goodwill within the West Wing. 
 
 (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) 
 
 “Bannon is a brilliant pirate who has had a huge impact,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump supporter. “But White Houses, in the end, are like the U.S. Navy — corporate structures and very hard on pirates.” 
 
 For now, at least, Bannon may survive the turmoil, and he and other White House staffers are striving to be on their best behavior after their infighting earned them a scolding by the president over the weekend, according to the aides and allies, many of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal dynamics. Bannon declined to be interviewed. 
 
 [Bannon wants a war on Washington. Now he’s part of one inside the White House.] 
 
 But the mercurial president has a long history of turning quickly on subordinates, and the political hit late Tuesday in the New York Post was trademark Trump, using the friendly Manhattan tabloid to publicly debase his chief strategist. The president said Bannon was hardly the Svengali of his caricature, but rather “a good guy” who “was not involved in my campaign until very late.” 
 
 Bannon’s associates were caught off guard by Trump’s comments. Some interpreted them as a paternal “love tap” by Trump to assert his own dominance, while others worried they amounted to an indirect firing. Bannon himself was humbled, people close to him said, and his allies scrambled to defend him, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who praised him in an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio program. 
 
 In a second interview, with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Trump referred to Bannon as “a guy who works for me” — and pointedly noted, as he did with the New York Post, that he was his own “strategist,” even though chief strategist is Bannon’s job title. 
 
 Trump also is increasingly embracing more mainstream policy positions championed by daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and their allies, including ascendant National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, instead of Bannon’s brand of combative nationalism. 
 
 1 of 13 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × 13 things you may not have known about Stephen K. Bannon View Photos Trump’s chief strategist served in the Navy, has a daughter in the Army and once referred to himself as a Leninist. Caption Trump’s chief strategist served in the Navy, has a daughter in the Army and once referred to himself as a Leninist. He served in the Navy According to Bloomberg, Bannon signed up right after college, serving from 1976 to 1983. He spent four years at sea working as an auxiliary engineer and a navigator aboard a destroyer. Courtesy of the Bannon family Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 On Wednesday alone, Trump flipped from Bannon-favored positions on issues such as the Export-Import Bank and Chinese currency ma­nipu­la­tion, alarming some Bannon aides who feared their wing had lost influence with the president. 
 
 On Ingraham’s show, Sessions dismissed the suggestion that Bannon’s worldview, which he shares, was being sidelined. “I’m an admirer of Steve Bannon and the Trump family and they’ve been supportive of what we’re doing,” said the attorney general, who in recent days has unveiled tough policies aimed at illegal immigration and drug crimes. “I’ve not felt any pushback against me or on anything I’ve done or advocated.” 
 
 Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a close Trump friend who chaired his inaugural committee, spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington meeting with the president and his senior team. He characterized the ideological disagreement between Bannon and others as natural and even healthy. 
 
 “The way this president makes decisions is he encourages different points of view from different people, and he curates those and comes up with his own positions,” Barrack said. “The lack of unanimity is just the way this president manages. He is in command and control.” 
 
 Trump and his team are rushing to notch accomplishments that they can hail at the 100-day mark later this month and to impose new discipline on a White House that has been riven by disorder and suspicion since Trump took office. 
 
 [Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages at leaks, setbacks and accusations] 
 
 Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court and sworn in this week, upending Senate procedure and marking a significant victory for Trump's conservative base. But the absence of any other major legislative achievement and the public failure of a health-care overhaul has gnawed at the president, and other White House advisers have been swift in assigning partial blame to Bannon, according to Trump staffers and outside allies. 
 
 Bannon’s effective demotion began last week when he was removed from the National Security Council’s principals committee. But his real problems began much earlier. Trump bristled at the media depiction of Bannon as a puppeteer, punctuated by the Feb. 13 Time magazine cover labeling Bannon “The Great Manipulator.” 
 
 Trump fashions himself as the leading man — the protagonist of every story in which he stars — and was content to have Bannon as his sidekick, but he did not welcome the competition for top billing. 
 
 Bannon further imperiled his standing with the president by getting crosswise with Kushner, officials said. The two men were close during last year’s campaign; Kushner came to see Bannon as a wartime consigliere. But in the White House, Bannon went to war with the business leaders Kushner helped recruit to the administration — Cohn and others, including Dina Powell, the senior economic counselor and deputy national security adviser. 
 
 Bannon privately derided them as “globalists” and “Democrats,” officials said, even though Powell worked in George W. Bush’s administration and has been called a principled conservative by leading Republican senators. 
 
 Bannon’s supporters believe he is an essential conduit between Trump and his nationalist, populist base. The wealthy Mercer family, which has nurtured Bannon’s political rise and infused Trump’s campaign and allied groups with millions of dollars, is closely monitoring Bannon’s falling fortunes. Rebekah Mercer, who directs the family’s political activities, is unnerved and worried about losing her best link to a president her family takes credit for helping get elected but believes Bannon will be able to maintain his influence, people close to the family said. 
 
 Ingraham wrote in an email of Bannon: “Of course he didn’t invent the conservative populist ideals that Trump ran on, but he is … a reminder in the West Wing of what the president’s core supporters expect of the administration and the promises that must be fulfilled. I think the president has really keen political instincts — and I have to believe he knows his chances of a successful first term are better with Steve on the inside than on the outside.” 
 
 [Horrible pictures of suffering moved Trump to action on Syria] 
 
 Other Trump loyalists flatly dismiss the idea that Bannon is the id of the Trump movement, pointing out that Trump has been advocating some of the same populist positions — especially on immigration and trade — for decades and for more than a year on the campaign trail before Bannon’s hiring last summer. 
 
 These people argue that a better representative of Trump’s voters inside the White House is Stephen Miller, the senior policy adviser and former Sessions aide who joined the campaign early and helped Trump hone and communicate his ideas. They said Miller has worked closely with Bannon but also has strategically aligned himself with Kushner, who came to see him last year as indispensable at Trump’s side. 
 
 As tensions have heightened in recent weeks, the Bannon and Kushner camps have devolved into opposing firing squads. Team Bannon believes the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” a show the president watches regularly, are speaking regularly with Kushner and projecting his anti-Bannon sentiments. Kushner allies, meanwhile, finger Bannon as responsible for unflattering stories involving the president’s son-in-law, including those focusing on Kushner’s talks with Russians. 
 
 Inside a White House led by a president increasingly hungry to make deals, even with Democrats, Bannon’s dogmatism appears to have weakened him. 
 
 “The West Wing is finally appreciating it’s a democracy, not a dictatorship, but the rules are hard to navigate when there is such a high degree of polarization,” said Richard Hohlt, a longtime Republican consultant who has observed seven different presidents since his arrival in Washington. “It becomes difficult in a democracy if you’re going to be all ideological purity, all the time.” 
 
 Trump’s three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — and Kushner have been frustrated by the impression of chaos inside the White House and feel that their father has not always been served well by his senior staff, according to people with knowledge of their sentiments. The Trump heirs are interested in any changes that might help resuscitate the presidency and preserve the family’s name at a time when they are trying to expand the Trump Organization’s portfolio of hotels. 
 
 “The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they’re not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage,” said one well-connected Republican operative, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s family. “It would be so protectionist, nationalist and backward-looking that they’d only be able to build in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks.” 
 
 Bannon has borne at least part of the blame for the administration’s problems governing. He was intimately involved in the entry ban, which was twice blocked in federal court, and the failed health-care push especially hurt him. Trump thought Bannon would be able to bring along the House Freedom Caucus — a group of hard-line anti-establishment conservatives — but they helped tank the bill to scale back the Affordable Care Act. 
 
 Reince Priebus, the often-embattled chief of staff, is among the aides who feel growing pressure from the president to show that the administration can govern. Priebus has been telling confidants, “I’m not going to have a Memorial Day where the number one headline is ‘Republicans can’t produce a budget’ when everyone else in America can,” according to multiple people with knowledge of his plea. 
 
 For Trump, one bright spot was the decision to launch 59 missiles in Syria last week. The president was pleased with the process, overseen by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, that brought together his war cabinet and corralled its expertise in a way that resembled a more traditional White House. 
 
 “He’s in the best place that I’ve seen him since the inauguration,” Barrack said. “He’s confident. He thinks he’s found the groove, and with his team too. . . . He looks great. His energy level is off the map. And I think he now feels the commander in chief role.” 
 
 Damian Paletta contributed to this report.
– President Trump's brief but chilly comments to the New York Post about Steve Bannon had the media scrambling to find sources willing to weigh in on one big question: Is Bannon in or out? The Washington Post spoke with 21 of the president's "aides, confidants, and allies" in a quest to answer that question. Here's what it and other media outlets are learning and speculating: First, know that Trump added more fuel to the fire later Wednesday with a second set of brief comments about Bannon, this time during a wide-ranging Wall Street Journal interview. An excerpt: "I'm my own strategist. ... I’m just saying that [Mr. Bannon] is a guy who works for me, he's a good guy. But, I make my own decision." Though it calls him a "marked man," the Post hesitates to establish a firm position, allowing that "for now, at least, Bannon may survive the turmoil." But it has two quotes that suggest otherwise: In one, an unnamed friend uses the metaphor of a dying relative being transitioned to hospice in describing Bannon. And there's this from Newt Gingrich: "Bannon is a brilliant pirate ... but White Houses, in the end, are like the US Navy ... very hard on pirates." The Post also suggests the Bannon-Jared Kushner friction may extend beyond Kushner. It calls out Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr. as being bothered by what they see as an appearance of turmoil that could prove detrimental to their legacy and quest to expand Trump-brand hotels. Though the New York Times reports that Bannon allies (who are major Trump donors) have been holing up in recent days and imagining a path forward for Bannon should he exit, it cites a well-placed source as saying no change is imminent. And Bannon does have allies: One of them, Jeff Sessions, went to bat for him Wednesday in an interview with Laura Ingraham, per the Hill: "I'm an admirer of Steve Bannon," he said. At FiveThirtyEight, Perry Bacon Jr. advises us to "watch not for the decline of Bannon, but for the decline of Bannonism," which Bacon names as one of the four ideological styles espoused by those near Trump. He writes that knowing who might replace Bannon would be the biggest clue, and explains the difference between Gary Cohn or Stephen Miller stepping up. At CNN, Gregory Krieg offers up a sort of answer to Bacon's question, writing the "emerging wisdom" is that Cohn and Kushner will be in and Miller will be out. Krieg largely waves off fears that losing Bannon would mean losing his core supporters, writing Bannon "does not represent the 'silent majority' that turned the 2016 election ... [with] its uniform disdain for the political and cultural establishment. Trump does."