Trump staff picks pit GOP establishment against populism

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday chose Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a loyal campaign adviser, to be his White House chief of staff, turning to a Washington insider whose friendship with the House speaker, Paul Ryan, could help secure early legislative victories.

In selecting Priebus, Trump passed over Stephen Bannon, the right-wing media provocateur. But he named Bannon his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist, signaling an embrace of the fringe ideology long advanced by Bannon and a continuing disdain for his party's establishment.

The dual appointments — with Bannon given top billing in the official announcement — instantly created rival centers of power in the Trump White House.

Bannon's selection demonstrated the power in Trump's rise of grass-roots activists who have long traded in the conspiracy theories and sometimes racist rhetoric of Breitbart News, the website that Bannon ran for much of the last decade.

The site has accused President Barack Obama of "importing more hating Muslims"; compared Planned Parenthood's work to the Holocaust; called Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator, a "renegade Jew"; and advised female victims of online harassment to "just log off" and stop "screwing up the internet for men," illustrating that point with a picture of a crying child.

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The grass-roots activists may be angered by the selection of Priebus as chief of staff, viewing him as a deal-maker who will be too eager to push the new president toward compromise on issues like taxes, immigration, trade, health care and the environment.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, the transition team emphasized that the two men would work "as equal partners to transform the federal government."

That simultaneous announcement is consistent with Trump's management style in his businesses and in his campaign: creating rival power structures beneath him and encouraging them to battle it out.

It is also a reflection of who has the ear of the president-elect: his children, especially Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Both of them had argued that the chief of staff job should not be held by someone too controversial, according to several people familiar with the decision-making inside the transition effort.

Kushner is likely to wield great influence over the new president regardless of whether he holds a formal title. Kushner, who has no experience in politics or government, often gets the final word in advising Trump.

But while Trump apparently feels comfortable with Priebus, the people with knowledge of his weekend decision said that Bannon was still the adviser who was better able to talk forcefully to the president-elect during difficult moments.

The transition team appeared eager to appease concerns among Trump's most fervent supporters that choosing Priebus meant that the president-elect had already caved to the Washington "swamp" he had promised to drain. The team also wanted to mollify Bannon, and to that end, the official statement mentioned Bannon first.

"We had a very successful partnership on the campaign, one that led to victory," Bannon said in the statement. "We will have that same partnership in working to help President-elect Trump achieve his agenda."

Priebus said he looked forward to working with Bannon and Trump "to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism."

Priebus is expected to have multiple deputies, including Katie Walsh, the chief of staff of the Republican National Committee, who is close to Priebus and helped ensure a tight working relationship between the party's operational infrastructure and Trump's campaign.

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A onetime Goldman Sachs banker, Bannon has transformed himself into a media figure who favors a scorched-earth style of politics and is deeply suspicious of the government establishment and the corporate elite. During the campaign, he pushed Trump to embrace a fierce populism that helped fuel his victory.

Trump's decision last summer to put Bannon in charge of his campaign was part of an effort to reset a candidacy that had suffered from controversies surrounding high-level campaign officials.

But Bannon is viewed with alarm by many, including some Republicans. Anna Navarro, a longtime Republican strategist who opposed Trump during the campaign, said on Twitter on Sunday: "Oh, hell! White supremacist, anti-gay, anti-Semite, vindictive, scary-ass dude named Senior Strategist. After vomiting, be afraid, America."

Bannon also brings to the post a bumpy background that includes misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and allegations that he threatened his then-wife with retribution if she testified in the criminal case, according to a police report and court records obtained by The New York Times.

The charges date back two decades to the end of a troubled marriage in Santa Monica, California, to Mary Louise Piccard, who claimed that he had attacked her at their home.

He was charged in February 1996 with domestic violence, battery and attempting to dissuade a victim from reporting a crime, but the case was dropped when Piccard did not show up in court. In court records, Piccard later claimed that Bannon had instructed her to leave town to avoid testifying.

Despite his image as a bomb-thrower, Bannon is also savvy at cutting deals to achieve his goals.

But as chief of staff, Priebus will be the one who has several hundred White House staff members reporting to him. He will be the primary gatekeeper for Trump and the person most responsible for steering the president's agenda through Congress. That role will be especially critical for Trump, who has never served in government and has few connections to important political figures.

The selection of Priebus comes at the end of a roller-coaster year for the Republican Party, which saw Trump rewrite many of its policy orthodoxies, clash with its leaders in Congress and denigrate the Bush political dynasty.

As Trump denounced the Republican primary process as rigged and, on occasion, threatened to quit the party and run on his own, Priebus remained neutral. And when Trump secured the nomination, Priebus stood by his side.

Priebus worked with Trump on the nuts and bolts of presidential politics, trying to smooth his rough edges and staying in close contact as a bare-bones campaign prepared to go up against the Clinton machine.

On the surface, the two men could hardly be more different. While Trump, 70, is known for his brashness and at times his viciousness, the much younger Priebus, 44, is regarded for his low profile and humility.

A Wisconsin native and lawyer by training, Priebus has never held elected office. But he served as state treasurer and worked his way up through the Wisconsin Republican Party to become chairman, putting him on the Republican National Committee, where he eventually became general counsel to the chairman at the time, Michael Steele.

Now the longest-serving Republican National Committee chairman, Priebus was elected to the job in 2011, unseating Steele on the promise of modernizing the party and refilling its coffers. With his focus on fundraising and fiscal issues, Priebus let Republican leaders in Congress be the voices of the party during the early part of his tenure. His profile rose as the 2016 election got into gear.

At times, Priebus, whose first name rhymes with "pints," struggled to defend Trump's antics, but he showed his loyalty by supplementing the campaign's resources and by urging Republicans to fall in line behind the candidate in spite of their reservations.

When Trump emerged onstage to give his victory speech early Wednesday, Trump made his appreciation clear, dismissing rumors of tension with Priebus and singing his praises.

"I never had a bad second with him," Trump said. "He's an unbelievable star."