The latest addition to Donald Trump’s team of advisers, 25-year-old Breitbart reporter Julia Hahn, may strike fear in the hearts of House Speaker Paul Ryan and his allies, according to a story by Robert Costa in the Washington Post.
Hahn is on her way to join President Donald Trump’s White House team as a senior adviser to the president working under chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon. Bannon was Executive Chairman of Breitbart News.
The Post’s Costa quotes anonymous House Republicans and people close to Ryan who are worried:
While Hahn will serve in a mid-level role as a special assistant to the president, her hiring alarmed and angered several allies of Ryan, who expressed concern Monday about what they see as a brazen move by Bannon that threatened the fragile comity between Trump and Congress — and brightly underscored the Trump team’s insouciance about enlisting Ryan’s fiercest critic. Privately, a number of House Republicans told The Washington Post that Hahn’s involvement signaled Bannon’s plans to possibly put her to use against them, writing searing commentaries about elected Republican leaders to ram through Trump’s legislative priorities and agitate the party’s base if necessary.
Peter Wehner, a Ryan ally and establishment Republican who previously served in the prior administrations, bashed Hahn in the Post’a article.
“This is obviously a provocative act and clearly an intentional act,” Wehner said. “Bannon is willing to napalm the bridges with congressional Republicans.”
Stuart Stevens, a GOP establishment consultant and failed campaign manager for the failed 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, also bashed Hahn and Bannon saying that “’Bannon has been at war with the Republican Party and that hasn’t changed’ with Hahn’s hire.”
Top Trump allies, like bestselling author and conservative columnist Ann Coulter, view Hahn’s hiring as a major win.
“As far as I can tell, she is only the third or fourth member of the Trump administration who actually supports Trump on his main issues — immigration, trade and no more war,” Coulter said.
Costa adds that this all happens on the backdrop of the globalist elitist versus nationalist populist battle happening inside the administration.
The article identified Bannon, policy and speechwriting wunderkind Stephen Miller, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama (Trump’s nominee for attorney general), as the “populist-nationalist wing” of the Donald Trump White House.
Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alexander Marlow told New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman that Hahn’s hiring was a victory for Trump’s base.
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