Trump chose top White House advisers

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, a right-wing media provocateur. 

But the president-elect 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 the Republican establishment. 

The dual appointments  — with Bannon given top billing in the official announcement — instantly created rival centres of power in the Trump White House.Bannon’s selection demonstrated the power of grass-roots activists who backed Trump’s candidacy.Some of them have long traded in the conspiracy theories and sometimes racist messages of Breitbart News, the website that Bannon ran for much of the last decade.

Bannon brings to the



post a background that includes misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and allegations that he threatened his wife with retribution if she testified in the criminal case, according to a police report and court records.

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, healthcare and environment.

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, the transition team emphasised that the two men would work “as equal partners to transform the federal government”. The arrangement appeared aimed at ensuring that both men would be required to sign off on many decisions jointly. And Bannon was assured that he reports directly to Trump, not to Priebus. 

The simultaneous announcement and competing lines of authority are 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.