Dear Everybody:
The big news today was Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, giving a long, long interview to the Vanity Fair in which she disses everybody, including Trump:
--A little background: The right was busily feuding with itself even before the Rob Reiner thing split them even further. Laura Loomer is mad at Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, and Tucker Carlson, and is fighting with Yannopolous and wants him deported.
--And nearly all of them were mad at Susie Wiles (since obviously nothing can ever be Trump’s fault, therefore blame it on his chief of staff.) But now she’s gone and made it MUCH worse by doing an interview with Vanity Fair, in which it sounds like she completely forgot who she was talking to and/or that this was all going to show up in print.
--She said Trump had "an alcoholic personality," a term used in psychology to describe impulsivity, denial, and erratic behavior even in the absence of drinking.
--She said he’s not falling asleep. "He’s not asleep. He’s got his eyes closed and his head leaned back."
--She said it was true that he had gone after his political enemies to get revenge, but that they had had an agreement that he would only do it for three months. She admitted he hasn’t stopped.
--Katie Phang: "Wiles says she doesn’t think Trump is on a retribution tour, but that he’s going after people who did bad things in coming after him...That sounds like retribution to me."
--(Note: Today Trump called for the arrest of Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland, "and many others.")
--She confirmed Trump was using criminal prosecutions to retaliate against adversaries. (Which I’m sure defense lawyers are introducing into evidence as we speak.)
--On Venezuela, she said, "Trump wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro says uncle."
--She said JD Vance’s conversion to MAGA was not sincere or on principle but was political, and that he was a "conspiracy theorist."
--She said Russell Vought was "a right-wing zealot."
--She said Elon Musk is an "avowed ketamine user" and an "odd duck" whose behavior often appeared irrational and left her aghast.
--She tried to distance herself from the destruction of USAID, with her supposedly telling Musk, "You can’t just lock people out of their offices," and "No rational person would think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody."
--She said Pam Bondi "completely whiffed" the Epstein files.
--But the most explosive thing she said was that she had reviewed what she called "the Epstein file" and acknowledged that Trump appears in it. She stated plainly that Trump was on Epstein’s plane and on the flight manifest. She described the two men as young, single "playboys" who spent time together, all of which completely undermines Trump’s story that he barely knew the guy and was never on the plane. She said Trump was lying when he accused Bill Clinton of visiting the island.
--James Singer: "Damn, Susie Wiles still has to like, go to work today after saying this."
--Internet Hippo: "Trump’s own chief of staff bolting for the exits and going into desperate career preservation mode is a ‘sign.’"
--Bill Kristol: "Sounds like a dramatic exit interview from Susie Wiles."
Amazingly, she wasn’t sacked (yet) and now she’s denying the whole thing, accusing Vanity Fair of lying and taking everything out of context:
-- She called it a "disingenuously framed hit piece on the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.
--Ron Filipkowski: "Apparently the White House chief of staff has been the victim of having her own words printed in a story."
--She also said she never would have said those things. Wiles: About the Elon Musk being on drugs thing, she said, "That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t have said it, and I wouldn’t know." To which Vanity Fair says, "We’ve got it all on tape, and it’s right here." (Note: It was.)
--Karoline Leavitt said: "This was unfortunately another attempt at fake news by a reporter who was acting disingenuously and really did take the chief’s words out of context, but I think most importantly the bias of omission was ever present throughout this story. The reporter omitted all of the positive things we said about the President." (Come on, she said he wasn’t asleep.)
--Greg Sargent: "She went full cult. Susie Wiles is the greatest chief of staff ever. Trump is the greatest President in US history. Have you ever noticed that whenever the news gets really bad, Leavitt and other propagandists always go out of their way to go full North Korea with Trump? And we know why, right? Because he is in a fury inside the White House."
--Private staffers privately expressed disbelief that she participated in the interview at all.
--The right is busily trying to defend her, saying she didn’t know she was on the record (she did 11 interviews with Vanity Fair, and they were all on tape, what did she think was happening?) and that everything was taken out of context.
--Vanity Fair confirmed that not only did she really say it was on the record and really said all those things, but they sent her a copy of the article for proofreading and corrections before it came out.
--And the ENTIRE CABINET posted that it was all fake news and she was a wonderful chief of staff AT THE SAME TIME WITHIN MOMENTS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE COMING OUT. (Defensive, much?)
--Jamelle Bouie: "When you read this, it is very clear that Wiles thinks she is flexing the administration’s muscle. Relatedly, it is also very clear that the White House is completely delusional about its standing with the public. They are high on their own supply."
--Simon Rosenberg; "To add to ‘the wheels are coming off’ sense we have in DC these days, today Vanity Fair published the first installment of reporting it has done from within the White House this year. What you are about to read is so fucking crazy, so Trumpian, and so terrifying that these corrupt vainglorious idiots are running our great country."
The other big news of the day was about extending the ACA subsidies:
--Mike Johnson announced that he WOULD NOT bring the bill extending the subsidies to the floor before the end of the year, even though there were enough votes for it to pass and the deal the Republicans made to end the shutdown included a guaranteed vote before the end of the year.
--Kyle Griffin: "Mike Johnson just said he won’t call a vote this year to extend enhanced subsidies under the ACA--officially guaranteeing they will expire at the end of the year."
--EC: "Mike Johnson orders second strike on surviving citizens clinging to the wreckage of this economy."
--Then four Republicans got thoroughly fed up with Johnson and signed a discharge petition to extend the ACA subsidies, giving the Democrats the 218 signatures they needed, and forcing Johnson to bring it to the floor.
--That still won’t get it to the floor before the subsidies expire, though, because 7 legislative days need to lapse before a discharge petition comes to the floor, amd Friday the House heads home for a two-week holiday recess, and Johnson did not respond when asked by Cnn whether he would permit a vote before the year’s end.
--Ron Filipkowski: "Massive defection for Mike Johnson. Still has to clear the Senate, but this is what Dems wanted all along. Mike Johnson has essentially lost control of the gavel after Epstein and now this. Weakest speaker in history."
--Mike Johnson: "Here’s the false narrative: Democrats are pretending as though this effects everybody in the country. It affects 7 percent of Americans, this extended subsidy." (He’s lying. Everybody will pay increased health care fees as people without healthcare end up going to emergency rooms and waiting till their medical condition is dire before seeking help, and hospitals and health insurance companies have to compensate for the extra expenses.
Tonight Trump is giving a big speech from the Oval Office. It’s supposed to be on the "affordability" issue, but who knows? People are speculating that it could be anything from the usual--snakes, windmills, Hannibal Lecter, Somalians--or an announcement that he’s declaring war with Venezuela.
--The real point of the speech is obviously to distract from his Rob Reiner comments and the fact that the Epstein files are coming out on Friday.
--Even MAGA knows it’s a PR stunt. Pro-MAGA host Gina Louden posted that he’s doing this "because he almost lost control of the ‘affordability’ narrative."
--The speech might be worth watching, if only because it will be at 9 p.m. EST, long past when they let the sundowning Trump be seen in public.
If the speech IS on the affordability issue, it better be something better than what he and Vance have been saying lately:
--Trump keeps pushing the idea that the fact that you can’t make ends meet is all in your head, and the economy is doing great. In an interview with Politico, Trump gave the economy a rating of "A+++++.
--Palmer Report: "This has to be the most economically out-of-touch moment in presidential history."
--Laura Ingraham, talking to Steven Hassett: "The President gave the economy an A+++++ rating. But economic sentiment is getting more negative. What explains that?" Hassett: "First of all, because of Joe Biden...Joe Biden dug a big hole."
--A former Trump official, Douglas Holtz: "I don’t see things as great at all. I don’t even see it as an A."
--JD Vance echoed Trump’s optimism, saying, "I give the economy an A+++++." And then added, "Of course you’re still struggling to get by. Rome was not built in a day."
--Meanwhile, unemployment claims jumped to 236,000 for the week ending December 6th, up 44,000 from the previous week. (Note: Under Biden 168,000+ jobs were created a month. Under Trump 119,000 jobs TOTAL have been created in 7 months. The US unemployment rate is now at its highest in 4 years.)
--The Fed cut interest rates again.
--Credit card balances have jumped to all time highs and delinquent accounts climbed to nearly financial crash levels.
--A new AP-NORC poll has Trump’s approval rating on the economy at a new low of 31%.
--Trump is also telling people who say they can’t make ends meet, "Don’t be dramatic."
--Adam Schiff: "If you have to cut back on gifts for your kids this holiday season because prices are way too high, the President has a message for you: ‘Don’t be dramatic.’"
--Jimmy Kimmel: "The guy who bedazzled this room in gold thinks your child has too many pencils."
In the Brown University shooting news:
--The police are still looking for the shooter five days after the shooting. They have released new (and much better) photos of the person they think did the killings.
--Meanwhile, Kash Patel left Providence to go do an interview with Stephen Miller’s wife about him and his girlfriend and their romance.
--In the interview, he said it was unfair for people to criticize him because he only uses the FBI jet to go to 15% of her concerts, and nobody criticized other directors for going on vacation.
--The Daily Mail: "There’s a mass shooter still on the loose while Keystone Kash’s defunded FBI can’t catch him. But good to know he’s got time to hop on a taxpayer-funded private jet to record a podcast with his girlfriend."
--John Bomscheib: "Imagine if, during the manhunt for Dzholekhar Tsarnaev in the wake of the Boston bombing in 2013, FBI director Robert Mueller went on his friend’s wife’s podcast to talk about how he and his girlfriend met, instead of searching for the killer. That is Kash Patel. Right now."
In Venezuela news:
--Defense Secretary Hegseth announced he WILL NOT release the video of the second strike.
--Trump posted an ultimatum to Venezuela, which read in part: "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before." He declared a complete blockade on all oil going in or out of Venezuela. (Note: A blockade is an act of war.)
--They gave a briefing to the Armed Services Committee on the boat strikes and the seizing of the oil tanker and the blockade. Afterward, Dem Senator Chris Murphytsaid, "There is no legal or national security justification for what they’re doing. Not even close."
In other news:
--The US Coast Guard went ahead with their downgrading of swastikas and nooses from "overt hate symbols" to "potentially divisive," even though they had promised (after a huge public outcry) not to do that. (They obviously just waited till they thought nobody was looking.)
--A federal court dismissed the case against Marimar Martinez (the woman ICE SHOT!) and Anthony Ruiz. They had claimed the two had attacked them instead of the other way around. Luckily, there was video. Keep filming, guys!
--The husband of an ICE agent in South Jersey was arrested for driving around in his wife’s official cruiser and impersonating an ICE agent.
In good news:
--The National Guard is now out of Los Angeles.
--Johnson and Johnson was ordered to pay $40 million dollars to the victims of their products containing talc which caused the victims’ ovarian cancer. (This lawsuit has been going on for YEARS as Johnson and Johnson did eveerything they could to keep from paying.)
--Solar and wind power has grown faster than electricity demand this year.
--A new cancer therapy using T-cells is offering hope to those with leukemia.
In War on Christmas news:
--Fox host Dagen McDowell did a story on a data center which is trying to put up huge transmission lines across a very famous Christmas tree farm and how the Christmas tree farm is trying to stop it.
--Fox’s take: "If this farm is 150 acres, yeah, there’s gonna be farms and there will be transmission lines to go through development and farms. That’s the very nature of a growing economy. Everybody needs to get on board. You know what? Buy a fake tree."
--Governor Newsom; "Why is Fox News starting a war on Christmas?"
In Christmas news:
--The poinsettia is sort of the official flower of Christmas (partly because nothing else blooms in December), but you may not know that it’s not really a flower. Well, it is, but the flower part is those little round yellow things in the middle that look like the center of the flower. The big, deep-red petals are actually the plant’s leaves.
--You may also not know that it hasn’t been the official Christmas flower all that long. It was first brought to the United States from Mexico in the 1820s by the first US Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, hence the name. It’s also known as the Christmas Star and the Christmas Flower. Its native name is "cuetlaxochiti," and it’s known in Mexico and Guatemala as "flor de nochebuena" or simply "nochebuena," which means "Christmas Eve flower."
Best comment of the day, from Jennifer Rubin: "Despite his bravado, Trump’s more frequent and extreme temper tantrums reveal he is also losing his ability to ignore criticism, control himself, and manage pressure...Trump is in a dangerous downward spiral. As Americans come to terms with his chaotic reign, they increasingly recoil at (and protest) his cruelty, incompetence, and recklessness. That leads to electoral defeats, which prompt Republicans to see their own political survival at risk. They are emboldened to revolt, revealing him to be a paper tiger. His base then perceives him as weaker. Naturally, his own volcanic narcissism then explodes...Trump has lost it. That might spell misfortune for MAGA Republicans, but it also poses new dangers to our democracy and security."
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis