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WASHINGTON — The whirlwind first week of Donald J. Trump’s presidency had all the bravura hallmarks of a Stephen K. Bannon production.
It started with the doom-hued inauguration homily to “American carnage” in United States cities co-written by Mr. Bannon, followed a few days later by his “shut up” message
to the news media. The week culminated with a blizzard of executive
orders, mostly hatched by Mr. Bannon’s team and the White House policy
adviser, Stephen Miller, aimed at disorienting the “enemy,” fulfilling
campaign promises and distracting attention from Mr. Trump’s less than
flawless debut.
But
the defining moment for Mr. Bannon came Saturday night in the form of
an executive order giving the rumpled right-wing agitator a full seat on
the “principals committee” of the National Security Council
— while downgrading the roles of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and the director of national intelligence, who will now attend
only when the council is considering issues in their direct areas of
responsibilities. It is a startling elevation of a political adviser, to
a status alongside the secretaries of state and defense, and over the
president’s top military and intelligence advisers.
In
theory, the move put Mr. Bannon, a former Navy surface warfare officer,
admiral’s aide, investment banker, Hollywood producer and Breitbart
News firebrand, on the same level as his friend, Michael T. Flynn, the
national security adviser, a former Pentagon intelligence chief who was
Mr. Trump’s top adviser on national security issues before a series of
missteps reduced his influence.
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But
in terms of real influence, Mr. Bannon looms above almost everyone
except the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in the Trumpian
pecking order, according to interviews with two dozen Trump insiders and
current and former national security officials. The move involving Mr.
Bannon, as well as the boost in status to the White House homeland
security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, and Mr. Trump’s relationships with
cabinet appointees like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have essentially
layered over Mr. Flynn.
Sean
Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Bannon — whose
Breitbart website was a magnet for white nationalists, antiglobalists
and conspiracy theorists — always planned to participate in national
security. Mr. Flynn welcomed his participation, Mr. Spicer said, but the
general “led the reorganization of the N.S.C.” in order to streamline
an antiquated and bloated bureaucracy.
Former White House officials in both parties were shocked by the move.
“The
last place you want to put somebody who worries about politics is in a
room where they’re talking about national security,” said Leon E.
Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and
C.I.A. director in two Democratic administrations.
“I’ve
never seen that happen, and it shouldn’t happen. It’s not like he has
broad experience in foreign policy and national security issues. He
doesn’t. His primary role is to control or guide the president’s
conscience based on his campaign promises. That’s not what the National
Security Council is supposed to be about.”
That
opinion was shared by President George W. Bush’s last chief of staff,
Josh Bolten, who barred Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political adviser, from
N.S.C. meetings. A president’s decisions made with those advisers, he
told a conference audience in September, “involve life and death for the
people in uniform” and should “not be tainted by any political
decisions.”
Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s last national security adviser, called the arrangement “stone cold crazy” in a tweet posted Sunday.
Mr.
Spicer said the language the Trump White House used in its N.S.C.
executive order is, with the exception of Mr. Bannon’s position — which
was created during the transition — almost identical in content to one
the Bush administration drafted in 2001. And Mr. Obama’s top political
operative, David Axelrod, sat in on some N.S.C. meetings, he added.
There
were key differences. Mr. Axelrod never served as a permanent member as
Mr. Bannon will now, though he sat in on some critical meetings,
especially as Mr. Obama debated strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“It’s a profound shift,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I don’t know what his bona
fides are to be the principal foreign policy adviser to the president.”
But
Mr. Bannon’s elevation does not merely reflect his growing influence on
national security. It is emblematic of Mr. Trump’s trust on a range of
political and ideological issues.
During
the campaign, the sly and provocative Mr. Bannon played a paradoxical
role — calming the easily agitated candidate during his frequent rough
patches and egging him on when he felt Mr. Trump needed to fire up the
white working-class base. The president respects Mr. Bannon because he
is independently wealthy and therefore does not need the job, and both
men ascribe to a shoot-the-prisoners credo when put on the defensive,
according to the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Mr.
Bannon is a deft operator within the White House, and he has been
praised by Republicans who view him skeptically as the most
knowledgeable on policy around the president. But his stated preference
for blowing things up — as opposed to putting them back together — may
not translate to his new role.
The
hasty drafting of the immigration order, and its scattershot execution,
brought a measure of Mr. Bannon’s chaotic and hyperaggressive political
style to the more predictable administration of the federal government.
Within hours of the edict, airport customs and border agents were
detaining or blocking dozens of migrant families, some of whom had
permanent resident status, until John F. Kelly, the new homeland
security secretary, intervened.
Mr.
Kelly’s department had suggested green card holders be exempted from
the order, but Mr. Bannon and Mr. Miller, a hard-liner on immigration,
overruled him, according to two American officials.
Mr.
Priebus, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, indicated a
softening of the stance, saying the order would not block “green card
holders moving forward” — but said anyone seeking to enter the country
from the listed countries would be subjected to tighter scrutiny.
People
close to Mr. Bannon said he is not accumulating power for power’s sake,
but is instead helping to fill a staff leadership vacuum created, in
part, by Mr. Flynn’s stumbling performance as national security adviser.
Mr.
Flynn still communicates with Mr. Trump frequently, and his staff has
been assembling a version of the Presidential Daily Briefing for Mr.
Trump, truncated but comprehensive, to be the president’s main source of
national security information. During the campaign, he often had
unfettered access to the candidate, who appreciated his brash style and
contempt for Hillary Clinton, but during the transition, Mr. Flynn
privately complained about having to share face time with others.
Mr.
Flynn “has the full confidence of the president and his team,” Hope
Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in an email. Emails and phone
calls to Mr. Flynn and his top aide were not returned.
A
president who likes generals and abhors political correctness, Mr.
Trump found in Mr. Flynn — who joined Trump backers in an anti-Clinton
“lock her up!” chant during the campaign — perhaps the most politically
incorrect general this side of his hero, Gen. George S. Patton.
But
Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon’s
intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in
2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration
officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further
diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N.S.C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team.
Mr.
Flynn’s penchant for talking too much was on display on Friday in a
meeting with Theresa May, the British prime minister, according to two
people with direct knowledge of the events.
When
Mrs. May said that she understood wanting a dialogue with Mr. Putin but
stressed the need to be careful, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Flynn when the two
were scheduled to speak.
Mr.
Flynn replied it was Saturday — he had delayed it to fit in Mrs. May’s
meeting for “protocol” as a United States ally, adding at length that
Mr. Putin was impatient to chat.
Mr. Trump, the person said, appeared irritated by the response.
Still,
the episode that did the most damage to the Trump-Flynn relationship
occurred in early December when Mr. Flynn’s son, also named Michael,
unleashed a series of tweets pushing a discredited conspiracy theory
that Clinton associates had run a child sex-slave ring out of a
Washington pizza restaurant.
Mr.
Trump told his staff to get rid of the younger Mr. Flynn, who had been
hired by his father to help during the transition. But Mr. Trump did so
reluctantly because of his loyalty during the campaign, when dozens of
former military officials were dismissing Mr. Trump as too unstable to
command.
“I
want him fired immediately,” Mr. Trump said in a muted rendition of his
“You’re fired!” line in “The Apprentice,” according to two people with
knowledge of the interaction.
That
has not stopped the general’s son from spouting off: On Saturday, at a
time when Trump surrogates were pushing back on the idea that the
executive order did not discriminate against any religion, the younger
Mr. Flynn tweeted his approval of the policy, adding “#MuslimBan.” The
tweet was subsequently deleted; his entire account disappeared later in
the day.
Still,
the national security adviser has also continued to dabble in the kind
of bomb-throwing behavior that concerns Mr. Trump’s allies, such as
planning to attend an anti-Clinton “Deploraball” event at the time of
the inauguration. He was urged to skip it by Trump allies, and
ultimately agreed.
Both
Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon still regard Mr. Flynn as an asset. “In the
room and out of the room, Steve Bannon is General Flynn’s biggest
defender,” said Kellyanne Conway, another top adviser to the president.
But
it is unclear when the maneuvers to reduce Mr. Flynn’s role began. Two
Obama administration officials said Trump transition officials inquired
about expanded national security roles for Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner at
the earliest stages of the transition in November — before the younger
Mr. Flynn became a liability — but after Mr. Flynn had begun to chafe on
the nerves of his colleagues on the team.
Mr.
Flynn’s reputation has raised questions among some in the cabinet. Two
weeks ago, both men held a meeting with Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s
pick to run the State Department, Mr. Mattis and Mike Pompeo, now the
C.I.A. director, to discuss coordination — Mr. Flynn was invited but did
not attend.
Part of the meeting was devoted to discussing concerns about Mr. Flynn, according to an official with knowledge of it.
