Miller and Kushner on a potential collision course in Trump’s border crisis

In President Trump’s latest blowup over immigration, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller hovered omnipresent in the background — goading him in his threats to close the border, warning him of the dangers of looking weak and encouraging the president’s sudden purge of his homeland security team.

Another top adviser who has Trump’s ear on immigration, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, maintained a lower profile during the uproar. Shortly before joining Trump on a trip to the southern border — where the president railed that the “country is full” — Kushner met privately with the Mexican ambassador to discuss a more collaborative approach.

The contrast highlights the good cop-bad cop roles on immigration that Kushner, 38, and Miller, 33, now inhabit in Trump’s West Wing, with the latter ascendant as he pushes a frustrated president to champion draconian border policies and rhetoric.

The two political survivors from Trump’s 2016 campaign have emerged as all but untouchable because of their close relationship — and, in Kushner’s case, familial ties — with the president. But if Miller represents Trump’s id — reaffirming his hard-line immigration impulses — Kushner attempts to channel the president’s desire to be seen as a consummate dealmaker.

The differences put the two advisers on a potential collision course — adding to the swirl of confusion over how Trump intends to cope with a surge of migrants at the border, according to interviews with 21 White House aides, administration officials, lawmakers, Republican operatives and Trump confidants, many of whom requested anonymity to reveal private discussions.

So far, though, White House officials say the two have maintained a friendly working relationship, focused on divergent but complementary imperatives.