<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Stephen K. Bannon, one of President Trump’s top allies, threw a party in January at his Capitol Hill townhouse for the Washington bureau chief of Breitbart<em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0"> </em>News<em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">, </em>Matt Boyle. The usual guests from the right-wing media ecosystem were there in full force, but one attendee stood out: Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Waltz, who posed for pictures with Mr. Bannon, Mr. Boyle and others, had been invited as part of an effort to rehabilitate him in an administration that was only eight days old. He was in a quandary faced by many Trump aides from the president’s previous administration. He had become too Trumpy to former Republican allies in the Washington political class, but not Trumpy enough to the president’s hard-core loyalists.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Even as Mr. Waltz has been in the middle of negotiations on a cease-fire between Ukraine and Russia, several people close to Mr. Trump now wonder if Mr. Waltz might be an early administration casualty. Others suggest that Mr. Waltz’s determination to align himself with Mr. Trump will save him from the fate that befell three of the four national security advisers in the president’s first term.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Mike understands the chain of command, which gives him a leg up over H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, who were there to implement their own agendas,” said Ezra Cohen, who served on the National Security Council and in the Pentagon during the first Trump administration. “He knows his job is to execute the policies of the president.”</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-1"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-1"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A case in point was Mr. Waltz’s response to Mr. Trump’s televised blowup at President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office last month.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Two days later on CNN, Mr. Waltz said Mr. Zelensky was “incredibly disrespectful” and questioned whether he was “ready to go to peace.” The day before on Breitbart Radio, Mr. Waltz compared Mr. Zelensky to an “ex-girlfriend that wants to argue everything that you said nine years ago, rather than moving the relationship forward.”</p><div class="css-1336jj"><div class="css-121kum4"><div class="css-171quhb"></div><div class="css-asuuk5"><noscript><div class="css-7axq9l" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="css-1b5b8u1" height="24" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24"><path clip-rule="evenodd" d="M2.5 12a9.5 9.5 0 1 1 19 0 9.5 9.5 0 0 1-19 0Zm8.5 1.75v-7.5h2v7.5h-2Zm0 2v2h2v-2h-2Z" fill="currentColor" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></svg><div class="css-6yo1no" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript-message"><p class="css-3kpklk">We are having trouble retrieving the article content.</p><p class="css-3kpklk">Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.</p></div></div></noscript><div class="css-1dv1kvn" id="optimistic-truncator-a11y" tabindex="-1"><hr/><p>Thank you for your patience while we verify access. 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