TEHRAN — A press secretary hired on a Friday and gone the next. An ambassador’s ouster announced during her only briefing. Loyalists feuding over money while the chief of staff’s family draws scrutiny. With the November 3 midterms less than three weeks away, Donald Trump’s White House has stopped hiding its disorder.
Katie Zacharia, a Fox News commentator few in the building knew, got the job because Trump was angry that nobody defended him on television as Republican prospects sank. He offered it in an Oval Office talk Chief of Staff Susie Wiles missed. “Did anyone vet her?” one adviser asked. Officials told CNN no one had.
Her only briefing, on Tuesday, ran 14 minutes and took three questions, all from friendly outlets. Asked where she had passed the bar exam, she answered, “When I moved to China.”
She later admitted she failed the California bar in 2011, though her own X reposts and the White House announcement called her “an attorney.”
After Sean Hannity and “Fox & Friends” pressed her, Trump claims he told her, “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.” Hours later, it was leaked that she is gone.
Citing two anonymous sources, CNN reports that Wiles helped arrange the Hannity slot, one calling it a “sanctioned hit.”
Purges, feuds and a sidelined friend
The single piece of real news delivered during Zacharia’s brief time at the podium was that Kimberly Guilfoyle had been asked to resign from her post as ambassador to Greece.
Guilfoyle, a television commentator and the former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., faced intense public scrutiny after reports revealed she sought $100,000 from a Trump donor to settle a personal credit card bill in exchange for granting political access.
Meanwhile, Trump spent Oval Office time on a vicious fight between Richard Grenell and Alina Mildon, who both owe their posts to him.
Paolo Zampolli, who says he introduced Trump to Melania, was pushed out at the State Department after a feud with Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau spilled into the press.
None of these moves look coordinated.
The chief of staff’s exposure
Wiles has her own problems. She worked on Netanyahu’s 2020 reelection campaign and helped isolate Trump to be fed “Mossad talking points,” according to American journalist Max Blumenthal.
Her daughter Katie is a partner at Continental Strategy, a lobbying firm reportedly paid $35,000 a month by Republika Srpska, the Serb-led Bosnian entity aligned with Milorad Dodik.
The firm claims she did not lobby U.S. officials for it and visited for another client. Still, photographs circulated just after Wiles allies James Blair and Chris LaCivita took paid consulting work there.
Trump reportedly called them “outside consultants” and threatened to “terminate them, immediately!” One person told Reuters that Wiles approved the trip without telling him.
Trump reportedly has said that Wiles will remain in her position. Reports say he has nonetheless sounded out allies about replacements. Stephen Miller, Bill Pulte and Lee Zeldin are all angling.
Pulte hauls poster boards of proposals onto golf courses and Air Force One, enough that Trump has complained about the clutter.
Corey Lewandowski, a Wiles rival, denies discussing Pulte with the president. One ally described the mood to Washington Post reporters as “the new Wild Wild West.”
Behind the panic
The panic has numbers behind it. Trump’s approval is the lowest of his presidency, dragged down by prices and dissatisfaction with the war on Iran. Aides reportedly expect to lose the House, call the Senate a coin flip, and admit Kansas and Texas are in play.
MAGA Inc. has spent about $200 million with little to show, and the Texas redistricting Trump pushed, one source told Reuters, “diced up the Trump voters too much.” Trump, who is not on the ballot, keeps telling rally crowds to pretend he is.
Washington keeps promising victory over Iran. It cannot yet keep a press office staffed for a week.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
