'Knife fight': Trump reportedly 'expressed frustration' at inner circle 'game of thrones'
Donald Trump became upset as two of his closes allies in the world of finance battled it out for a key job in his administration, according to a new report.
Various reports have detailed fights among those on Trump's transition team, including a physical altercation between top Trump advisers that reportedly took place at Mar-a-Lago.
But there was another battle that the Wall Street Journal describes as a "game of thrones" and a "knife fight" that caught the president-elect's ire.
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"It was Scott Bessent’s job to lose—and he almost did," the report states. "But after two weeks of uncertainty, Donald Trump selected Bessent, a longtime investor, as his next Treasury secretary. The pick capped a drawn-out, behind-the-scenes game of thrones marked by suspicion, personal animus and last-minute U-turns."
The report quotes insiders as saying that Trump trusted Bessent and thought he "looked the part," but another player threw his hat into the ring and had the support of close Trump ally Elon Musk.
"But Bessent’s glide path was upended by an 11th-hour play for the job by Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Howard Lutnick, which culminated in Elon Musk signaling to his 200 million social media followers that he backed Lutnick and viewed Bessent as a 'business-as-usual choice,'" according to the report. "As the deliberations dragged on, Trump at times expressed frustration with his options—and the many leaks about the process—prompting him to bring additional candidates into the mix."
Trump ultimately chose Bessent over Musk's objection, leading some to speculate about the limits of the influence the richest man in the world has on the former and incoming president. But details are still spilling out about the intense infighting.
"Lutnick and Bessent’s relationship frayed to the point that some of Trump’s advisers worried they wouldn’t be able to work together in the incoming administration. The president-elect’s longtime aides, many of whom grew accustomed to the interpersonal squabbling that was commonplace in his first term, were stunned by the two men’s apparent disdain for one another and the extent to which they were publicly and privately battling over the job," the outlet reported Saturday. "Last week, a Trump adviser compared the tension between Bessent and Lutnick, co-chair of the transition, to a cold war. Days later, the same adviser said it could be more accurately described as a knife fight."
"Shortly after Election Day," according to the report, "Trump privately complained to aides that Bessent and Lutnick, who were two of his closest allies in the finance world, weren’t getting along, according to people familiar with the matter."