Trump Fires Warning Shot in Battle Between Bannon and Kushner

As he grappled on Thursday with his first major decision involving military action, a fed-up and frustrated President Trump turned to his two top aides and told them he had had enough of their incessant knife-fights in the media.

“Work this out,” Mr. Trump said, according to two people briefed on the exchange. The admonition was aimed at Stephen K. Bannon, the tempestuous chief strategist, and Reince Priebus, the mild-mannered chief of staff, over a series of dust-ups with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and the top economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn.

But they may not be able to.

The president is said to be aware that a meaningful reconciliation will take work to achieve between Mr. Bannon, who sees himself as the keeper of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises, and the competing ideologies of Mr. Kushner and Mr. Cohn, a longtime Wall Street executive and a Democrat. And he is considering a shake-up of his senior staff, according to four people with direct knowledge of the process.

Whether he acts on it remains to be seen.

But this past week, one that some of his aides considered the best of his presidency, was marred by fits, starts and self-inflicted wounds — and the constant churn of news accounts of a White House at war with itself finally wore the president out. And notice of a possible shake-up was a warning shot to his team to make adjustments.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, insisted that such accounts were untrue.

But two people who have spoken with Mr. Trump said he recognized that the continuing state of drama was unsustainable.

No changes are imminent, they said. But the president is considering a range of options, including a shift in role for Mr. Bannon, who has become increasingly isolated in the White House as other power centers have grown, as well as additional senior staff.

Mr. Priebus has been a source of contention for a number of Mr. Trump’s former advisers, with the president pushing back on criticism with the response that the former chairman of the Republican National Committee is a “nice guy.”

Mr. Kushner, 36, a government neophyte who has taken on a much larger portfolio as a top West Wing aide and foreign envoy, was said to be displeased after hearing that Mr. Bannon made critical remarks about him to other aides and Trump associates while he was in Iraq recently.

There is a long history of presidents making staff changes, and one of Mr. Trump’s predecessors, Bill Clinton, made changes within the first six months of his administration.

Newt Gingrich, an informal adviser to Mr. Trump and a former House speaker, said, “I think first of all a very high amount of tension in the White House is normal.”

“I think they have particular tension right now because the health bill failed,” he added.

The stories about infighting “probably bother him some,” Mr. Gingrich said. “But do I think they’re damaging to his long-term prospects? I think they’re noise.”

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