### Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Describes Him as Having "an Alcoholic’s Personality"
**December 16, 2025**
In a series of unusually candid interviews published today in *Vanity Fair*, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles offered a rare insider's perspective on President Donald Trump, including the striking observation that he has "an alcoholic’s personality"—despite being a lifelong teetotaler.
Wiles, who co-managed Trump's successful 2024 campaign and is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in his second-term administration (and the first woman to serve as chief of staff), drew the comparison from her personal experience. Her father, legendary NFL player and broadcaster Pat Summerall, struggled with alcoholism before achieving sobriety in the early 1990s. Summerall died in 2013 after 21 years sober.
"Some clinical psychologist who knows one million times more than I do will dispute what I’m going to say," Wiles told *Vanity Fair* writer Chris Whipple across more than 10 interviews. "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."
She elaborated that Trump "operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing."
Trump has long attributed his abstinence from alcohol to the tragic example of his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981 at age 42 from complications related to alcoholism. Trump has repeatedly said this influenced him profoundly, even telling comedian Theo Von in 2024 that if he drank, he might have developed a problem himself.
The comment quickly made headlines across outlets like CNN, The Daily Beast, The Independent, and The New York Times, with many noting its unflattering undertones despite coming from one of Trump's closest and most loyal advisors.
Wiles also touched on other sensitive topics in the interviews:
- Acknowledging an element of retribution in ongoing prosecutions of Trump's political opponents.
- Describing Vice President JD Vance as having "been a conspiracy theorist for a decade" and suggesting his shift from Trump critic to ally was "sort of political."
- Criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In response to the article's publication, Wiles posted on X calling it a "disingenuously framed hit piece" that omitted positive context about Trump and the team. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Wiles, stating Trump "has no greater or more loyal advisor."
The interviews highlight Wiles' unique role as a steadying force in an administration often described as chaotic, with one former Republican official telling *Vanity Fair*: "So many decisions of great consequence are being made on the whim of the president. And as far as I can tell, the only force that can direct or channel that whim is Susie."
While the "alcoholic’s personality" remark has dominated coverage, it underscores Wiles' attempt to explain Trump's boundless confidence and larger-than-life demeanor through her own lens—framed not as criticism, but as insight into what drives him.
She explained that he “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
Trump's brother, Fred Trump Jr., was an alcoholic, and Trump doesn't drink alcohol at all. However Mary Trump, the president's niece, has said that for the president, "nothing is ever enough."
"This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism," Trump's niece, who has a degree in clinical psychology, said of Trump. "Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be."
Mary Trump wrote that her grandfather bullied his son, Fred Jr., into alcoholism.
Later in the Vanity Fair report, it explains that Wiles' father "was an absentee father and an alcoholic, and Wiles helped her mother stage interventions to get him into treatment." He finally got sober and stayed there for the 21 years before his 2013 death.
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