Another Call From Inside the House
Susie Wiles becomes the latest Trump staffer who...
As Donald Trump prepares to wag the dog in Venezuela, the White House finds itself caught in the toils of L’affaire Wiles, the president’s allegedly unflappable — but apparently loose-lipped — chief of staff.
By now you know the toplines: In a series of chatty interviews with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles says Trump “has an alcoholic personality” who has to be coaxed out of his obsession with retribution. JD Vance has been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade.” Elon Musk is “an avowed ketamine [user]” and an “odd, odd duck”. AG Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” on the Epstein files. (“She gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”) White House budget chief Director Russ Vought is “A right-wing absolute zealot.”
And on and on, as the White House Chief Gossip Girl described an Administration filled with misfit toys lead by a vindictive toddler.
As Jonathan Chait notes, Wiles “did not say anything that Republicans didn’t already know. Her error lay in the breach between what Trump’s supporters understand and what they are permitted to say.” But Wiles remains a staunch Trump loyalist and seems anxious to hang on to her job. So, wagons circled, asses covered, and denials offered. Wiles described the reporting as a “disingenuously framed hit piece... done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative.” But the journalist, Chris Whipple, has her on tape, which should make for some quite interesting ketchup-on-the-wall conversations.
But let’s put this in a larger context, shall we? Because we’ve had these calls from inside the house before. Wiles joins a long list of aides, staffers, and cabinet members who have worked with Trump; seen him up close; and upon emerging into the light said: WTAF?
Indeed, no president has earned the open contempt and denunciation of so many of his inner circle. 1
In Trump 1.0, nearly every major national security, legal, and communications aide in Trump’s orbit — from Bill Barr to Cassidy Hutchinson — either resigned in protest, testified against him, or warned that he’s a threat to the Constitution.
His former vice president, Mike Pence — refused to back him for re-election.
Former Chief of staff John Kelly — Trump said is a “Fascist” and “The most flawed human being I’ve ever met.”
Secretary of Defense James Mattis — “He doesn’t even pretend to try to unite us.”
General Mark Milley — “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — “A f***ing moron.”
John Bolton — “Unfit for office.”
Which raises the question: Why does this keep happening?
Happy Wednesday.
To know him is to…
… warn the country against him.
This was Trump’s loyal Attorney General Bill Barr, presumably after the scales fell from his eyes:
“[Donald Trump] is a consummate narcissist and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk.
“He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests….
“He’s like a 9-year-old — a defiant 9-year-old kid who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people.
“And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, “his personal gratification of his ego.”
“But our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”
But wait, there’s more.
Via Politico: “Former Trump Defense secretary brands him a security threat.”
Esper, who served in Trump’s Cabinet, said: “People have described him as a hoarder when it comes to these type of documents. But clearly, it was unauthorized, illegal and dangerous.”…
Tapper asked Esper if he thought that Trump, if elected president in 2024, could ever be trusted with the nation’s secrets again.
“Based on his actions, again, if proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no,” Esper said.
“I mean, it’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk. You cannot have these documents floating around.”
Former Trump secretary of state, Mike Pompeo:
“If the allegations are true, President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them, and then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason. … That’s inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. And if allegations are true, some of these were pretty serious, important documents.”
And it goes on and on: former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster; Miles Taylor, Elizabeth Neumann, Anthony Scaramucci, Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson, Gary Cohn, Ty Cobb, Tom Bossert…
Exit take: Why does this keep happening? You know. We all know. And folks keeping trying to tell the voters…
Donald Trump, “Stark Raving Maniac”
Not my words, although obviously I agree.
Somewhat remarkably that’s the way he’s described in National Review. Writer Jim Geraghty holds nothing back:
“The president of the United States,” he writes, “is a hateful raging lunatic with all the empathy of Jeffrey Dahmer…”
This, of course is known, but Geraghty — triggered by Trump’s crass attacks on Rob Reiner —takes a deeper dive into presidential pathology.
I’ll let you decide whether the term psychopath or sociopath better describes the president’s actions. On some level, we always knew the president was a nut of some kind, obsessed with grievances; vindictive and prone to posting late-night tirades on social media; uninterested in details; erratic, impulsive, spiteful. (“But he fights!”) …
Moral compass? This president has none.
You can run a company that enjoyed a wildly lucrative role conducting financial transactions among criminals, terrorist groups, and hostile states, and this president will pardon you, believing anything he’s told about how Joe Biden prosecuted him because he hated crypto.
Or you can run a massive cocaine smuggling operation while being president of a South American country, and this president will pardon you, too, because he’ll believe anything he’s told about how your successful prosecution was a witch hunt.
As Geraghty writes, only one thing matters in Trump’s amoral universe.
This president cannot discern moral right and wrong through a person’s actions, like a normal human being. Donald Trump’s entire worldview of whether someone is a good person or a bad person depends entirely on whether that person offers praise or criticism of Trump. This is the person who runs the executive branch of the U.S. government, and this is a formula for disaster. This is, I suspect, a factor in why the Trump administration is so friendly to the likes of Xi Jinping and endlessly patient with Vladimir Putin, while sneering with contempt about leaders of European democracies. Trump does not see anything inherently morally objectionable about a brutal autocrat with a long history of egregious human-rights abuses, but he will never forget or forgive a European leader who ever uttered a critical word in Le Monde.
You can prefer the president’s policies. You can say you’re happy you voted for him over Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris.
But what you can’t say is that Donald Trump is a good and decent human being.
Amen.
Greene, who is retiring from Congress in January after a bitter falling out with Trump, suggested the cracks in the Republican Party are growing wider.
“I think the dam is breaking,” she warned, pointing to recent Republican breaks with Trump.
Last week, 13 House Republicans - in a rare rebuke of the president - voted with Democrats to restore collective bargaining rights he had stripped from about 1 million federal workers earlier this year.
“Those 13 Republicans that voted to take down his executive order last week, literally that same evening put on their tuxedos and their evening ballgowns and went to the White House Christmas party. That’s pretty bold,” Greene told Collins.
In the same week, Indiana Senate Republicans rejected Trump’s push to redraw the state’s congressional districts to produce two more GOP-friendly seats.
“That is a sign where you’re seeing Republicans, they’re entering the campaign phase for 2026, which is a large signal that lame duck season has begun,” Greene said. “He’s got real problems with Republicans within the House and the Senate that will be breaking with him on more things to come.”
Exit: When MTG starts making sense, is it a sign of the Apocalypse? Asking for a friend.
Wednesday dogs
They want to know. Is it Christmas yet? And will there be dog toys? (Spoiler alert: Yes there will be.)
A partial list of Trump insiders who broke with him after watching him close up:
Vice President (Mike Pence)
Attorney General (Bill Barr)
Two Secretaries of Defense (James Mattis, Mike Esper)
Two Secretaries of State (Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo)
Two Chiefs of Staff (John Kelly, Mick Mulvaney)
Two National Security Advisors (John Bolton, H.R. McMaster)
Deputy National Security Advisor (Matt Pottinger)
Secretary of the Navy (Richard Spencer)
Communications Director (Alyssa Farah Griffin)
Press Secretary (Stephanie Grisham)
Cabinet Members (Elaine Chao, etc.)
Personal lawyers (Michael Cohen… and counting)
How depraved and telling is it that the story is that "Pam Bondi whiffed" when we are talking about the coverup for a POTUS who enabled, befriended, participated and enjoyed being around one of the most disgusting pedophiles of them all?
Honestly...it makes me want to toss my cookies just thinking about this being the "story" to Suzie Wiles. How disgusting. Who are these people?
Getting rid of Trump will not solve our problems until we bring down the Heritage Foundation, oops I mean Opus Dei and the 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. They anointed him as the one they could manipulate.