Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly fumed privately to associates over the weekend because they had been caught unaware by a travel ban that was drafted and set into action largely in secret by the White House, according to three people who have spoken with them. Inside the West Wing, tensions flared as differences in management style emerged between two factions: one led by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who wrote the immigration order, and the other composed of Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and his deputies, who are accustomed to operating with a more traditional chain of command. Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, speculated that the administration could have given "people a heads up a week or so out and get them on the same page.” But he cautioned that the administration is “understaffed and Trump is impatient,” and the White House has a natural learning curve. 1 of 23 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Protest at New York’s JFK airport against Trump’s order halting refu­gee admissions View Photos Entry to the United States is being refused to legal residents, including green-card holders, from seven mostly Muslim countries who were abroad when the executive order was signed Friday by the president, and some travelers were detained at U.S. airports. President Trump signed an executive order that halted refugees and residents from certain predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. “Why pick a fight over this group of people who have a lot of emotional stories to tell? Others — such as Priebus, the deputy chiefs of staff and White House press secretary Sean Spicer — function in a more reactive capacity, left trying to find order in chaos and explain away slapdash actions. Frustrated by the administration’s lack of communication to reporters on what the executive order did and didn’t do, they tried to pick up the slack by emphasizing that the ban was not a prohibition on Muslims. One top House office said it was able to glean the president’s plan only through unofficial back channels to the Department of Homeland Security. replied simply, “I wasn’t” — an echo of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who told reporters Monday that the White House had not briefed him before signing the order. Karen DeYoung, Kelsey Snell and Sean Sullivan contributed to this report.
– President Trump has been accused of signing off on a legally flawed immigration order crafted without congressional input, but according to Politico's sources, his team did have some help on Capitol Hill—they just couldn't tell their bosses about the order. The sources say aides on the House Judicial Committee helped the Trump team draft the executive order between the election and his swearing-in, but they were required to sign nondisclosure agreements and Republican leaders were not informed. In a statement, a committee aide said they had been permitted "to offer their policy expertise," but Trump was responsible for the "final policy decisions contained in the executive order and its subsequent roll-out and implementation." Some senior Republican lawmakers saw a draft version of the order early last week, insiders tell BuzzFeed, but they were left in the dark about major changes, which meant even legal US residents were blocked from entering the country, until after the order was signed. "It was chaotic and very uncoordinated and it caused not only a lot of concern and problems on Capitol Hill, it caused obviously a big PR backlash for the administration," one GOP aide says. According to the Washington Post's sources, the bungled rollout has exposed not just a rift between the White House and congressional Republicans, but between different factions in the White House itself, with many unhappy with Steve Bannon's disregard for tradition. "The problem they’ve got is this is an off-Broadway performance of a show that is now the number one hit on Broadway," says Newt Gingrich.