Last week, McMaster fired Derek Harvey, the NSC’s top Middle East adviser. Harvey was perceived as too close to Bannon by some White House aides, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis had disagreed with Harvey at times.

And another Bannon acolyte, Rich Higgins, was given the boot on July 21, as Rosie Gray at the Atlantic first reported on Wednesday. (This was before the arrival of Kelly as chief of staff.) Higgins, a former Pentagon aide, wrote and circulated a memo charging the “deep state,” “globalists,” and “bankers” with aligning with “Islamists” against the Trump administration.