Made the “Ice Maiden,” as Donald Trump calls his no-frills chief of staff Susie WilesDid , who led the White House quietly and with a relatively steady hand in contrast to his chaotic first term, have a breakdown or was it a hit job?There was excitement in Washington on Tuesday with a bombshell Vanity Fair interview with the 68-year-old political activist in which she discussed everything from her teetotal boss with the personality of an “alcoholic” to his eccentric team.
She compared Trump to her alcoholic father, legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, and said that Trump has “the personality of an alcoholic” because he “acts with the view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.” She called Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist,” White House Budget Director Russell Vought “a right-wing, absolute zealot,” and Trump’s one-time friend Elon Musk “a weird, weird duck, like I think geniuses are,” and “a self-confessed ketamine user,” to boot. Wiles noted that there has been “major disagreement” over imposing tariffs, acknowledged that the administration needs to “take greater scrutiny” of its mass deportation process and said it must “concur” with Trump’s Jan. 6 decision to grant blanket pardons to the defendants.
She had forged a “loose agreement” with the boss to end the “settlement” with his political enemies after 90 days “because she didn’t want it to distract from his true agenda,” but in the end Trump got his way – as always.“In some cases it can look like retaliation,” Wiles admitted. “And from time to time there can be an element of that. Who would blame him? Not me.”Wiles also glossed over Trump’s relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of “completely doubting” that she “recognized the fervor of the president’s right-wing supporters” over Epstein files.Then on Friday, the Justice Department released hundreds of thousands of pages of Epstein-related documents, just ahead of a deadline set by a bipartisan law passed last month. MPs fumed as many of the documents released by the self-proclaimed “most transparent government in history” were heavily redacted and the text blacked out.
Despite his highly publicized friendship with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump’s name was rarely mentioned, while Bill Clinton was featured prominently in several photos.While late-night show hosts had a field day with Wiles’ interview with Jimmy Kimmel, in which he referred to her as “the future former chief of staff,” some wondered if Donald and Susie were simply doing a good cop-bad-cop routine.Wiles himself dismissed the Vanity Fair article as “a disingenuously worded hit piece about me and the best president, the best White House staff and the best Cabinet in history” without disputing any facts or quotes, while Trump defended it with the words “fantastic.”The Real Clear Politics even suggested that Trump made a surprising, pithy sales pitch on television the next night at Wiles’s instigationabout affordability, the successes of his first term and the challenges ahead, beyond his signature “fabric.”“Good evening, America. Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” he said, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for everything from the economy to crime to health care to poor immigration policy.“What a difference a year makes,” Trump said, ignoring consumer sentiment by claiming the U.S. was “facing an economic recovery the likes of which the world has never seen.”It was Wiles again who got him to give the rare prime-time address, Trump revealed after a sip of Diet Coke, according to a TV Pool report. “I told you 20 minutes,” Wiles reminded Trump as she praised his message discipline, “and you were on time 20 minutes.”Then it was time for fun and games again. To brand Washington in his own image, Trump renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington the Trump-Kennedy Center.The signage change followed a decision by its hand-picked board of trustees to rename the complex, although such a move might require congressional approval.Previously, new plaques were installed among the presidential portraits displayed on Trump’s “Presidential Walk of Fame” in the White House Colonnade, “many” of which were written by Trump himself and give his distorted version of history.The person placed under the portrait of the “Autopen” representing Biden refers to him as “sleepy Joe Biden” and calls him “the worst president in American history” with mocking references to Biden’s “severe mental decline,” “the Biden Crime Family” and his “radical left handlers.”The plaque, under “Barack Hussein Obama,” as right-wing circles often derisively use his full name, calls him “one of the most controversial figures in American history” and repeats Trump’s conspiracy theory that Obama “spied” on his 2016 presidential campaign.The “Trump 45” and “47” plaques make boastful claims about the creation of “the greatest economy in the history of the world,” his sweeping tariffs, his harsh immigration policies, and the construction “right here in the White House, the magnificent Trump Presidential Ballroom after a 225-year wait—but THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”There was no information from the White House about how the plaques were paid for, whether government funds were used and whether they were installed by government employees.In response to the compliment, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom postedAnd DiaperDiplomacy released an AI-generated, playful version of the Don’s speech, in which a little Trump bragged about sending every soldier a warrior’s dividend, tariffs, troops and TrumpRX worth $1,776, with little political big wigs including Obama listening in amusement – an apt comment on a 79-year-old youthful ruler!(By arrangement with The American Bazaar, www.americanbazaaronline.com)
