New York: US President Donald Trump, a strict teetotaler, has agreed with his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’s observation that he has an “alcoholic’s personality”, and both put a positive spin on it as a single-minded pursuit of aims.
“I’ve said that many times about myself”, he said on Tuesday, brushing off the explosive assertions she made about him and his administration.
“I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality”, Trump said in an interview with the New York Post after her insider observations were published.
It sounded like a vote of confidence for Wiles from Trump, who went through four chiefs of staff in his first term, the first one, Reince Priebus, lasting just over six months.
Other officials in Trump’s administration, including Vice President JD Vance, also rallied to her defence.
Wiles said in her interviews to Vanity Fair that he has “an alcoholic’s personality”, but she added a positive spin that he “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing”.
Explaining her diagnosis, she added, “Some clinical psychologist that knows one million times more than I do will dispute what I’m going to say. But high-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so, I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities”.
That may be a reference to her father, Pat Summerall, a sports journalist, who was an alcoholic, and she was involved in family efforts to get him to stop drinking, according to media reports.
In her post on X, she called the articles “an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team”.
Wiles, the most powerful woman in the Trump administration with a cabinet rank, did not dispute the accuracy of the quotes in Vanity Fair articles, but said that “significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story”.
It was unusual for a chief of staff – or even a high-level official – to give such a candid, on-the-record interview while still in office.
As the official closest to the president administratively, she has a unique perspective on the people in government and politics.
Wiles called Vance a ‘a conspiracy theorist’, and he took it in his stride, telling reporters, “Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time”.
“But I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true”, he said.
Wiles praised FBI Director Kash Patel for his political acumen in understanding the importance of revealing the files of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a multi-millionaire investment adviser with connections to many important political, business, and celebrity personalities.
“The people that really appreciated what a big deal this is are Kash, and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino … because they lived in that world” of Trump’s base, she said.
At the same time, she said that what Patel “thought was in these files that turns out not to be right”.
Wiles criticised Attorney General Pam Bondi for how she handled the Epstein files issue, saying that she “whiffed it”.
But defending Wiles, Bondi said she “fights every day to advance President Trump’s agenda – and she does so with grace, loyalty, and historic effectiveness”.
Wiles also contradicted a claim by Trump that former President Bill Clinton had visited Epstein’s notorious island, the scene of criminal pedophilia and sex abuse.
“The president was wrong about that”, she said.
But Clinton has appeared in pictures with Epstein and in flight logs of his private plane, while he has not been linked to any misconduct.
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