Danielle Kurtzleben
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
The more than 200-word post accused Venezuela of stealing, quote, oil, land, and other assets from the U.S., but did not explain what he meant by that, nor did it give any details on the announced action.
The White House did not immediately respond to NPR's questions about the post.
Trump has in recent weeks suggested he would start strikes on Venezuelan soil soon.
However, as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles acknowledged to Vanity Fair in an article published this week, any land attacks would require congressional approval.
Well, for one thing, Wiles openly described several conflicts within this White House.
For example, when Elon Musk started gutting USAID, Wiles says she was aghast and argued with him about how he was doing it.
She also talks about disagreements on tariffs and how she and Vice President J.D.
Vance initially tried to get Trump to back off of announcing that big round of tariffs in April.
But in addition, Wiles is just blunt about people.
She calls Vance a conspiracy theorist whose conversion from anti to pro-Trump was, quote, sort of political.
And she really pointedly criticizes Attorney General Pam Bondi for her initial handling of Jeffrey Epstein disclosures.
Yeah, some people do.
And this really got a lot of attention on social media because of it.
But there's a lot of nuance here, really.
The picture that emerges is that you have all these personalities in that White House, some of whom, yeah, aren't described 100 percent glowingly, but that Wiles is this no-nonsense force just herding them all together in the service of Trump's agenda.
And even when it seems here like she might have criticized Trump, the truth is just more complex.
For example, there's a quote that got a lot of attention where she said Trump has an alcoholic personality.
But in context, what she was saying is that Trump has a big, exaggerated personality and that he, quote, operates with a view that there is nothing he can't do.
Well, that's news to no one.