Washington — (CNN) President Donald Trump’s top two advisers will take the stage together Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in their latest attempt to dispel notions that they are combative rivals fighting for power in the West Wing.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon found themselves at the center of reports of West Wing in-fighting in the administration’s first hectic weeks, but have recently sought to portray their relationship as collaborative.
In a series of joint interviews in the last two weeks, the two men have emphatically shot down reports of division and instead claimed a chummy, symbiotic relationship.
Bannon told The Hill newspaper last week that Priebus “is doing an amazing job.”
“We are executing on President Trump’s agenda in record time. That’s because Reince is getting the job done,” Bannon said. “We are a completely united team dedicated to enacting his bold agenda to bring back jobs and keep this country safe,” Priebus echoed in the interview. And in an interview with New York Magazine, the two men joked about giving each other back rubs and said they speak all day long “until somebody falls asleep.”
White House sources have also backed up their account in recent weeks, but a source who spoke separately with both men last week told CNN that while Bannon had nothing negative to say about Priebus, the White House chief of staff badmouthed Bannon over the phone.
The two men’s professional backgrounds could not be more different. While Priebus has long been a creature of establishment Republican politics — rising to RNC chairman before becoming chief of staff — Bannon spent most of his professional career amassing wealth in the private sector before taking on a role as the head of the bomb-throwing, establishment-bashing Breitbart News site.
After Trump was elected, their new positions atop the West Wing roster were jointly announced atop. The two men would work together as “equal partners,” Trump said in the release.
The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (PHOTO: CNN)
