Bannon-Kushner ‘intrigue’ to end

PALM BEACH : Top White House aides Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met and agreed to “bury the hatchet” over their differences, a senior administration official has said, in a bid to stop the infighting that has distracted from President Donald Trump’s message.

Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, and Kushner, an influential adviser and Trump’s son-in-law, met on Friday at the request of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus who told them that if they have any policy differences, they should air them internally, the official said.

The development at the president’s Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, came at the end of what has been a relatively smooth week for Trump.

Trump ordered airstrikes against Syrian targets that drew praise in many parts of the world and staged an error-free summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, complete with his wife, Melania, wearing a red dress to symbolise the main color of the Chinese flag.

Priebus’ message to Bannon and Kushner was to “stop with the palace intrigue” and focus on the president’s agenda, the offi-

cial told Reuters. Both aides left having agreed that it was time to “bury the hatchet and move forward,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Four former advisers to the president said Trump is accustomed to chaos in his decadeslong career as a real estate developer but that even he has grown weary of the infighting.

“He’s got a long fuse for that kind of thing,” said one former adviser.