Ugly and Unprepared, 'Knife Fight' Breaks Out in Trump Transition

While Republicans have been outwardly celebrating their victories, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition to power is reportedly mired in chaos and infighting as competing factions duke it out to see whose version of “Make America Great Again” will dominate under the new world order.

A “knife fight” is how one source described the backroom disagreements over “key cabinet appointments and direction, both for internal West Wing positions and key national security posts,” CNN reported.

On one side is the newly-appointed and highly-controversial chief strategist Steve Bannon, who—as chairman of the inflammatory Breitbart News and a figurehead within the global alt-right movement—is seen as a political outsider who is expected to hold significant influence over Trump’s international policy decisions.

On the other side, CNN reported, are “more traditional Republican operatives” such as Trump’s chief of staff and former Republican Party chair Reince Priebus.

“A particular challenge,” CNN noted, “is lack of clarity about the division of power among Priebus, Bannon, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who also has a key role in transition decisions. Another source tied to the transition described the resulting confusion as ‘buffoonery.'”

Prominent neoconservative and former counselor to the secretary of state under president George W. Bush, Eliot A. Cohen, who had been an early critic of Trump’s, recently penned an op-ed suggesting a new openness to the President-Elect. However, on Tuesday he issued a tweet vehemently recanting that sentiment after an “exchange” he had with the transition team:

On Tuesday, the “traditional” Republican flank suffered another blow when Mike Rogers, former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, announced that he would no longer be serving as national security senior advisor to the Trump team, saying: “Our work will provide a strong foundation for the new transtiion team leadership as they move into the post-election phase, which naturally is incorporating the campaign team in New York who drove President-elect Trump to an incredible victory last year.”

Rogers’ departure is the most recent amid the “Stalinesque purge”—as one source called it—of the team assembled by former transition leader New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was replaced last week by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.