Spicer: Reports of West Wing Infighting ‘Overblown’

White House press secretary Sean Spicer talks to the media during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington Monday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

The White House sought to downplay the supposed feud between two of President Donald Trump's top aides on Monday, with press secretary Sean Spicer calling reports of infighting between Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner "overblown."

"There's a lot of stuff that was overblown about this that makes it out into the media sometimes and gets a little more sensational than it really is," Spicer told reporters at his daily news briefing.

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Late last week, reports surfaced that Bannon, a senior strategist and the face of the populist, "America First" base that propelled Trump into office, was feuding with Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. Some reports suggested Bannon was on his way out.

Bannon is the former chairman of Breitbart News with ties to the alt-right, and his role in Trump's campaign and later, in the White House, has been a source of criticism for the new administration, especially as he was said to be a main proponent of some of Trump's most controversial moves since taking office.

Things came to a head last week, when Bannon supposedly threatened to quit over his demotion from a spot on the National Security Council's principals committee. Bannon has said the reports are "total nonsense."

Trump was reportedly frustrated by the resulting rash of negative headlines that predicted a West Wing staff shakeup, and ordered White House chief of staff Reince Priebus to force the two men to sit down and "work it out" on Friday.

While Spicer did not deny that Bannon and Kushner had met to "smooth things over," he sought to reframe the clash as the inevitable result of Trump's desire to hire advisers with a "diverse set of opinions" rather than "monolithical" thinking.

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"Our battles and our policy differences need to be behind closed doors," Spicer said. "We need to focus and ultimately all come out committed to his agenda."

"The idea isn't to have one set of thought and policy flowing through there, it's to give the president the best advice possible," Spicer said, "but that once the president makes a decision, that team is on board 100 percent to make sure that we do what's in the best interests of the country and fulfill the agenda that he's laid out."