Following up on the MAGA-under-pressure, intra-MAGA knife fights breaking out, whack everybody front. From this morning’s Politico Playbook …
PLAYBOOK IN PRINT: Natalie Harp printed a copy of yesterday’s Playbook about Susie Wiles’ future for President Donald Trump, according to two people with knowledge. It caused a “freakout,” as three people described it to Playbook. The president “blew up” over more bad headlines about his chief of staff, and Wiles and allies “burn[ed] up phones around town” trying to quell the situation.
Unlikely to calm the storm: NYT reporting more details on Wiles’ daughter’s work overseas, along with other allies involved in the Republika Srpska saga. “The White House is in a state of panic. Susie is looking over her shoulder, trying to solicit people to go out and say good things about her and her team and make it seem like everything is fine. It’s not,” a person close to the president told Playbook.
The president made more calls to allies about Wiles after reading Playbook, according to a person with direct knowledge. And another name is now being floated around Trump world as a possible future chief: DNI Jay Clayton.
How much of this is true? Hard to say! But I’m told by people who I think are knowledgable and reliable that Wiles’ jeopardy at least is real. Her daughter being part of this Republika Srpska lobbying story certainly fits with Trump suddenly seeming very intolerant of corruption that makes him look bad or fails to cut him in. But there’s also a strong last days of the fading king vibe. Trump does genuinely seem deeply dependent on Natalie Harp. And that kind of total access and control over the spigot of information to the president is generally the definitional attribute of the chief of staff. It’s assuming a lot to think she’s driving this. Politico Playbook, sadly, isn’t some out of the way columnist or rising MAGA Twitter influencer. What seems certain is the basic rule that things get messier when a group or a movement or cult comes under extreme pressure. And that at least is clearly the case.
