Trumpiana: Good cop, bad cop, all Trump - the Susie Wiles show comes to Washington

Did the “Ice Maiden,” as Donald Trump calls his no-nonsense chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has quietly run the White House with a relatively steady hand unlike his chaotic first term, have a meltdown or was it a hit job?Washington was abuzz Tuesday with a bombshell Vanity Fair interview with the 68-year-old political operative dishing on everything from her teetotaller boss with an “alcoholic’s personality” to his oddballs team.

Comparing Trump to her alcoholic father, the legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, she suggested Trump had “an alcoholic’s personality” because he operates with “a 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 pal Elon Musk “an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are” and “an avowed ketamine” user to boot. Wiles suggested there had been “huge disagreements” over implementing tariffs, acknowledged that the administration must “look harder” at its process for mass deportation and said she had to “get on board” with Trump’s decision to give blanket pardons to Jan. 6 defendants.

She had forged a “loose agreement” with the boss to end the “score settling” against his political enemies after 90 days “because she did not want it to distract from his real agenda,” but in the end Trump had his way - as always.

“In some cases, it may look like retribution,” Wiles admitted. “And there may be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me.”Wiles also glossed over Trump’s relationship with the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and faulted Attorney General Pam Bondi for having “completely whiffed” on “recognizing the fervor of the president’s right-wing supporters” about Epstein files.Then the Justice Department Friday released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to Epstein just ahead of a deadline imposed by a bipartisan law passed last month. Lawmakers cried foul as many of the documents released by the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history” were heavily redacted, with text blacked out.

Despite his well-publicised friendship with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, Trump's name was rarely mentioned, while Bill Clinton featured prominently with several photos.Meanwhile, as late night show hosts had a field day with the Wiles interview with Jimmy Kimmel calling her “the future former chief of staff,”some wondered whether Donald and Susie were simply playing a good cop bad cop routine.Wiles herself dismissed the Vanity Fair article as “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest president, White House staff, and cabinet in history,” without disputing any facts or quotes as Trump came to her defense calling her “fantastic.”The Real Clear Politics even suggested it was at Wiles’ instance that Trump made a surprise succinct sales pitch on television next nightabout affordability, the accomplishments of his first term, and the challenges ahead minus only his signature “weave.”"Good evening, America. Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it," he said laying blame on his predecessor Joe Biden for everything from the economy to crime to healthcare to bad immigration policy."What ‌a difference a year makes," Trump said, dismissing the mood of consumers, to claim the US is "poised for an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen." It was again Wiles who made him give the rare prime-time address, Trump disclosed after taking a swig of Diet Coke, according to a television pool report.

“I told you 20 minutes,” Wiles reminded Trump as she complimented his message discipline, “and you were 20 minutes on the dot.”Then it was back to fun and games. Branding Washington in his own image, Trump had The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington renamed — the Trump-Kennedy Center.The signage change followed a vote by his hand picked board of trustees to rename the complex though such a move could require congressional approval.Earlier, new plaques were added under presidential portraits on display on Trump’s "Presidential Walk of Fame" in the White House colonnade, “many” of them written by Trump himself giving his distorted version of history.The one 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 derisive 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 divisive figures in American history ” and repeats Trump's conspiracy theory that Obama "spied" on his 2016 presidential campaign.The Trump 45 & 47 plaques make boastful claims about creating “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World," his sweeping tariffs, hard-line immigration policies and building “right here at the White House, the magnificent Trump Presidential Ballroom after a 225 year wait — but THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"There was no word from the White House as to how the plaques were paid for, whether government funds were used and whether they were installed by government employees.Returning the compliment, California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom posted on X his own version of the Trump plaque in the Don style saying, “DONALD IS FINISHED - HE IS NO LONGER ‘HOT’… DONNIE J MISSED ‘THE DEADLINE’ (WHOOPS!) AND NOW I RUN THE SHOW.”And ‘DiaperDiplomacy’ posted an AI generated kiddified version of the Don’s speech with a little Trump boasting about sending every soldier $1,776 warrior dividend, tariffs, troops & TrumpRX with little political big wigs, including Obama listening with amusement — an apt commentary about a 79-year old juvenile ruler!(By arrangement with The American Bazaar, www.americanbazaaronline.com)