On Friday, it seemingly spilled out into the open. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino skipped work due to his frustrations with the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is the target of an online MAGA campaign to have her fired. Trump so far has defended Bondi, who said in February that the Epstein client list was sitting on her desk, but now says the case is closed.

While the Epstein U-turn sparked the latest public rift, another core issue for the MAGA base was the reason for an earlier power play.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last month implored Trump not to pause immigration raids on farms, hotels, and restaurants after he announced a moratorium on social media following a discussion about farmer concerns with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Pausing raids would have been unpalatable to Trump’s base.

“We’ll let the president’s decision speak for itself,” a DHS spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner when asked what the decision said about Trump’s relationship with Noem.

A source familiar with Trump’s relationship with Rollins described it as “incredibly strong,” “built on nearly a decade of mutual trust, loyalty, and deep alignment on policy and purpose. ” This week, both the president and the secretary reiterated that there would be “no amnesty” for illegal immigrant farm workers. 

“She has been by his side on the campaign trail, in the White House, and as the founder of the America First Policy Institute, which she launched to help sustain and advance the movement,” the source told the Washington Examiner. “Now serving in his Cabinet, she remains one of the most trusted and committed advocates of the president’s vision for putting America First.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson insisted Trump’s “entire administration is working in lockstep to enact the president’s agenda and deliver results for the American people.”

“Six months in, the president has delivered success after success,” Jackson told the Washington Examiner. “The border is secure, inflation is down, the economy is thriving, American energy dominance is back, the OBBB is signed into law, and more wins are on their way.”

Elon Musk’s altercations

Before former Department of Government Efficiency pseudo-Administrator Elon Musk departed from the administration in May, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was involved in multiple power plays with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

Musk’s moves put him at odds with Rubio and Bessent, both of whom have become well-respected and almost overutilized by Trump. Rubio is not only the acting national security adviser but also the acting national archivist. Meanwhile, Bessent has been negotiating trade deals with senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro, who helped with the China agreement during Trump’s first administration and is among those being considered to become the next Federal Reserve Board chair.

Rubio opposed Musk’s State Department reforms, some of which were introduced without the former senator’s approval, including the former chairman’s “five things” email idea. In contrast, Bessent reportedly had a physical altercation with Musk in April. Tensions started during transition when the entrepreneur called for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to become treasury secretary and came up again in the spring when he pushed for Gary Shapley to become acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner. Trump nominated Bessent’s pick, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender, as acting IRS commissioner two days after nominating Shapley. Bessent has criticized Musk for a lack of DOGE savings as well.

“They did have an argument, but I didn’t see a lot of physicality there,” Trump told reporters last month.

Spokespeople for the State and Treasury Departments did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.

Trump takes action after Ukraine and Epstein criticism

At the same time, Trump was proactive this week after criticism of his administration’s moratorium on military shipments to Ukraine, in addition to allegations that his aides had misled the public on the federal government’s investigation into Epstein, the deceased convicted sex offender.

First, Trump stepped in for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the Pentagon last week stopped weapons from being deployed to Ukraine pending a force-wide stockpile review without updating the White House. Trump on Thursday announced the U.S. would be selling MIM-104 Patriot mobile surface-to-air interceptor missile systems to North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies with the understanding that they would be then sold or donated to Ukraine.

This is not the first time Hegseth has caused problems for Trump. Most of Trump’s Cabinet have been TV and media fixtures in some fashion, vocally advocating his agenda, but Hegesth was hired directly from TV, as a former Fox News host.

He’s been scrutinized for his perceived lack of managerial experience as he oversees the country’s largest employer and his over-reliance on his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, for advice. Wiles and Vice President JD Vance have been trying to help him replace his chief of staff and top advisers after he dismissed them in April following accusations they had leaked information to the media. They have yet to make any appointments.

“The American people are not interested in hearing about gossip from Washington,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told the Washington Examiner. “They care about the America First agenda that this department and President Trump are delivering. President Trump has repeatedly praised Secretary Hegseth for his leadership and endorsed his ability to get the job done — that has not and will not change.” 

Then Trump stepped in during a Cabinet meeting to respond to questions asked of Bondi about why she told Fox News in February that Epstein’s client list was “on her desk” after the FBI released a memo this week reporting that the financier did not have a list. Bondi went on to answer the question, but on Friday, Bongino, who previously expressed concerns regarding Epst, reportedly contemplated resigning over his agency’s memo.

“President Trump is proud of Attorney General Bondi’s efforts to execute his Make America Safe Again agenda, restore the integrity of the Department of Justice, and bring justice to victims of crime,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner. “The continued fixation on sowing division in President Trump’s Cabinet is baseless and unfounded in reality.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is also reportedly on the outside of the sphere of influence after she posted a video last month in which she underscored the risks associated with nuclear war, a long-held position of hers, as Trump weighed taking military action against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. In the end, the president struck three Iranian nuclear sites.

“This is just a lazy regurgitation of a fake news story that BOTH the White House and vice president have already debunked,” DNI press secretary Olivia Coleman told the Washington Examiner. “The director remains focused on her mission: providing accurate and actionable intelligence to the president, cleaning up the Deep State, and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free.” 

More generally, a White House official countered that Trump needed to reassert himself over his administration to correct the situation, arguing, “No one thinks he’s not top dog.”

“Everyone on the president’s team knows that he is the ultimate decision maker,” the official said. “Unlike his predecessor, who was frequently asleep at the wheel, President Trump engages often with members of his Cabinet to discuss important policy matters. But there is never any question as to who is the final decision maker or need for the president to ‘assert’ himself.”

Wiles and loyalty emerge as main differences between Trump 1.0 and 2.0

Trump insiders emphasize that the main differences between the president’s first and second administrations include Wiles and his employment of loyalists.

Wiles, Trump’s former campaign manager, whom the president has referred to as the most powerful woman in the world, has tried to maintain the Oval Office as the administration’s focal point and has found diplomatic off-ramps for problematic issues and people.

“Susie Wiles, the most powerful woman in America, will go down as one of the greatest chiefs of staff in American history,” Alex Bruesewitz, a senior adviser to Trump’s outside operation, told the Washington Examiner. “The president and Susie have assembled a stellar team that has been working closely together for many years, so the chemistry is off the charts.” 

Republican strategist Alex Conant agreed that although Trump has “hired more loyal people,” he is also running a “more disciplined operation.”

“His team is united behind a common agenda in a way that they weren’t eight years ago,” Conant told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a much more effective operation.”

Rahm Emmanuel, a former chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, disagreed that Trump’s second administration was less dramatic than his first. Emmanuel, a former Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador to Japan, cited the president’s dismantling of the National Security Council and the Ukraine weapons pause as examples of “chaos.”

“I’ve heard reports about the secretary of the treasury and Elon Musk having a screaming match in the hallway, so when you tell me there’s no drama, maybe I’m reading different things than you are,” Emmanuel told the Washington Examiner. “It sounds like the president doesn’t want any competition for drama since he likes to make it himself, so maybe it’s just a displaced area where the drama is.”

Diplomatic off-ramps for problematic issues and people?

The use of diplomatic off-ramps, compared to Trump’s social media-driven human resources strategy of his first administration, commenced during the transition when now-Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stepped down from DOGE’s leadership in January, in part, after he supported H1-B visas.

In February, Trump and Musk endorsed Ramaswamy’s campaign for governor.

A source familiar with DOGE’s early days told the Washington Examiner that Ramaswamy would “definitely” refute reports that he was “pushed” out of the organization and that he had a “diplomatic off-ramp.”

“The answer is his departure stemmed from philosophical differences about how DOGE was going to operate,” the source said.

The source, adding that Musk preferred to use artificial intelligence and other computer tools to “root out fraud, waste, and abuse” rather than Ramaswamy’s preference for more “comprehensive” tactics, including litigation and legislation, to reduce the administrative state, continued: “Vivek earned their endorsements.”

The second diplomatic off-ramp was handed to Trump’s now-nominee to become the next ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz.

Waltz, a former Florida Republican congressman, was Trump’s national security adviser until May. Then Trump announced he was re-nominating the one-time Army Special Forces officer to become the U.S.’s top diplomat to the U.N.

The personnel change was prompted by Waltz mistakenly including a magazine editor in a Signal messaging application group chat in March about attack plans against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The White House has disputed that Waltz was demoted, pointing to Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) ardent desire to be in the U.N. post. But Leavitt later alluded to his dismissal when asked by the Washington Examiner about how many people Trump had terminated so far during his second administration. 

“Actually, we have not had anyone fired, with the exception of one individual who did leave their job,” she said in May.