Washington (United States) (AFP) – Donald Trump said Tuesday he stood by his chief of staff Susie Wiles after she said the US president had an “alcoholic’s personality” in an astonishing interview with Vanity Fair. Wiles also called Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist,” branded tech tycoon Elon Musk an “odd, odd duck,” and gave juicy opinions on other Trump administration figures in the lengthy piece.
Trump has previously described Wiles, the first female White House chief of staff, as the “ice maiden” and credited her for her role in driving forward his second presidency behind the scenes. But the 68-year-old Wiles now finds herself firmly in the headlines after the Vanity Fair story, which the magazine said was based on a series of interviews with veteran political journalist Chris Whipple over the past year. Wiles dismissed the article as a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” accusing the magazine of trying to “paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative” about Trump’s team.
“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” she wrote. Trump himself told the New York Post that Wiles was right to describe him as having an alcoholic’s personality — even though he is teetotal. “You see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,” Trump said. He added that Wiles had “done a fantastic job.”
Vanity Fair quoted Wiles — whose own father, the NFL announcer Pat Summerall was an alcoholic — as saying that Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality,” and “operates (with) a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.” In the wide-ranging series of interviews, Wiles said she was “not an enabler” to Trump, who has unleashed an unprecedented display of presidential power since his return to power in January, adding “I’m also not a bitch.”
But she was forthright about Space X and Tesla boss Elon Musk’s role as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency in the first months of Trump’s term. Describing billionaire Musk as a “complete solo actor” and “avowed” ketamine user, she criticized DOGE’s shutdown of the USAID international aid department. “No rational person could think the USAID process was a good one,” Vanity Fair quoted her as saying.
Wiles hailed what she called a “core team” of Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller but said Vance had been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade” regarding the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Trump’s chief of staff had barbed comments for Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying Bondi “completely whiffed” on the promised release to right-wing influencers of documents about convicted sex offender Epstein. She called Russ Vought, the hardline chief of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a “right-wing absolute zealot,” Vanity Fair said.
The magazine said Wiles gave revealing insights into Trump’s policies on key domestic and foreign policy issues too. She said she had a “loose agreement” with Trump to end the “score settling” against his political enemies after 90 days, even as he has continued to target his foes with calls for their prosecution. On Ukraine, Wiles said that Trump believes Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants the whole country,” despite Washington’s push for a peace deal.
Top Trump cabinet members lined up to defend Wiles and lash out at the Vanity Fair piece. Vance said in a speech in Pennsylvania that he and Wiles had “joked in private and in public” about him believing conspiracy theories. “We have our disagreements, we agree on much more than we disagree, but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States,” Vance said in a speech in Pennsylvania. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that there was “absolutely nobody better!” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing that Wiles was “incredible” and accused Vanity Fair of the “bias of omission.”
© 2024 AFP
