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Top aide Susie Wiles: Trump has 'alcoholic's personality,' obsessed with revenge

Dave Goldiner, The Mercury News on

Published in Political News

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said that President Donald Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality” and is obsessed with retaliating against critics even if it undermines his own policies, according to a bombshell magazine story published on Tuesday.

Wiles, considered a trusted and loyal Trump insider, also trashed Vice President JD Vance as an incurable “conspiracy theorist” and political chameleon and said Trump’s campaign against Venezuela is really aimed at engineering regime change, an admission that contradicts the White House party line.

While Trump does not drink, Wiles told Vanity Fair that the MAGA leader reminds her of her alcoholic father Pat Summerall, the late New York Giants star quarterback and sportscaster, because of his singlemindedness and irrational refusal to bend to advice.

“High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink,” she said. She added that Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality” and believes “there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

It was unclear if Wiles could be in hot water with Trump for her candid remarks. She denounced the Vanity Fair story in a rare social media post as a “disingenuously framed hit piece.”

“This was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team,” she tweeted.

Wiles said she and Trump agreed he would limit his revenge campaign to the first 90 days of his second term so it wouldn’t interfere with his broader political agenda. But she conceded he ignored that deal and often disregards advice to stop talking about foreign policy or his unpopular plan for sky-high tariffs on imported goods.

On Venezuela, Wiles said Trump ordered the deadly campaign of attacks on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean to force strongman Nicolas Maduro from office.

“He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” she said. “And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.”

Wiles’ candid insider account starkly refutes the official policy of the White House that the strikes are a limited defensive effort to stop deadly fentanyl from reaching American shores.

The Trump staffer had extraordinarily frank and harsh words about Vance along with mogul Elon Musk and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

 

She derided Vance as a Johnny-come-lately to the MAGA movement “who’s been a conspiracy theorist for a decade,” suggesting he flip-flopped on his previous antipathy to Trump only to get elected to the Senate in 2022.

“His conversion came when he was running for the Senate,” Wiles said. “And I think his conversion was a little bit more, sort of political.”

As for Musk, Wiles suggested she was uncomfortable with the world’s richest man’s short-lived role as powerful first buddy of Trump. The bromance famously blew up when Musk denounced his One Big Beautiful Bill as a betrayal of his cost-cutting mission as leader of the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency.

“He’s an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are,” she said of the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire. “It’s not helpful, but he is his own person.”

She also accused Musk of being “an avowed ketamine” user, referring to the prescription drug that the mogul has admitted using but denies abusing.

Wiles admitted the Trump team has badly mishandled the controversy over pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting her boss and others underestimated the powerful and enduring grip the scandal would hold on factions of his supporters and right-wing influencers.

Bondi “completely whiffed” when she sought to placate MAGA media figures by handing out a tranche of the Epstein files that turned out to include no new information, Wiles said. Instead of quieting the controversy, it fanned the flames of outrage over a cover-up that has proven to be a political albatross for Trump.

“First, 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.”

She claimed Trump didn’t approve or agree with the controversial decision to grant Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell a transfer to a cushy federal prison camp after she sat down for an interview with Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer and the No. 2 man at the Justice Department.

“The president was mighty unhappy,” Wiles asserted. But she didn’t explain why Trump hasn’t ordered Maxwell returned to the Florida prison where she had been serving time on her conviction for sex trafficking.


©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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