Tales From the Inner Sanctum

Break It Down!

If I were to hazard a guess, I doubt there are very many non-MAGA folks who are familiar with the name Susan Summerall Wiles. In fact, more people are likely to be familiar with her father, Pat Summerall, who played in the NFL, but gained legendary status as an announcer for the League with CBS, Fox, and ESPN. But enough about Pat. The post is about his daughter who has carved out a niche for herself in her chosen profession.

Susie, as she’s known, has had several important roles in politics, none more noteworthy than the last two; Co-Chair of Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential Campaign, and current White House Chief of Staff. She is universally respected Republican circles, and she brought the kind of electricity and magic to Trump’s second campaign that Kellyanne Conway brought to the first one. Moreover, she seemed to have handled the multi-varied demands of Chief of Staff with a level of dexterity that none of the several men who held the role in Trump’s first term mastered.

And for the most part, she did it all quietly. Until yesterday. Then, from out of the blue, Susie changed the game. I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Wiles was interviewed by Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair. According to Whipple, Wiles revealed a number of factoids that differ, substantially in some cases, from the Trump Administration’s talking points. The story hit yesterday, and the White House has been doing proverbial clean-up on Aisle 3 ever since.

Before I List a few of the assertions Whipple says Wiles made, I will fist disclose her objection…which was many things, but not a denial. Wiles said yesterday, after the article hit:

“The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.” She went on to say:

“Significant context was disregarded, and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story.” She further added:

“None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!”

Now, before I go on, allow me to elucidate what separates what Whipple reported from what Wiles retorted.

When Wiles, and White House insiders suggested her comments had been taken out of context, or misconstrued, Whipple produced receipts. When the New York Times called and said Wiles said she’d been misquoted or misinterpreted…Whipple played the tapes. Oops!

By the way, it’s worth noting that the interview was in fact, more like 11 interviews. Whipple met with, or talked to Wiles 11 times, over 11 months, for a total of about 11 hours, or roughly an hour each time. It basically a Year in Review summation of Trump’s first year, term two. Sort of an homage…in reverse. 

On Donald Trump: 

She said of the President, “He has an alcoholic’s personality.” She of course, was not suggesting the President (Who doesn’t drink) is an alcoholic. Rather that he has the kind of mood swings and obsessive nature about (actually many) things that an alcoholic might.

On J,D. Vance:

(Basically, in comparison to Marco Rubio) “His conversion was a little bit more , sort of political.” This was in recognition of the fact that prior to the Vice President’s Senate run (for which he needed Trump’s support), Vance was virtually a Never-Trumper. He actually compared Trump to Hitler. By contrast, she suggested Rubio, who also did an ideological shape-shift from Little Marco to Trump’s Do-it-all Secretary of State.

She also said of Vance, “He’s been a conspiracy theorist for years.” As proof, I offer, do you remember the “Haitians are eating the dogs” ruse? A conspiracy theory Vance doubled down on, and that to my knowledge, he never disavowed. Then he claimed Fentanyl was being brought into the country as a plot to kill conservatives, and then…the stolen election (2020). Enough said.

On Elon Musk:

He’s an avowed ketamine(user). And he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the EOB (Executive Office Building) in the daytime.”

On Pam Bondi:

“I think (AG Bondi) completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this…First they gave them bonders full of nothingness. And then, she said that the witness list, or client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”

On Ghislaine Maxwell’s move to a better prison: It was (Blanche’s) suggestion…The presid4nt was ticked…The president was mighty unhappy. I don’t know why they moved her. Neither does the president.”

On Bill Clinton (my personal favorite):

“There is no evidence Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s island, according to Wiles; as for whether there was anything incriminating about Clinton in the files, ‘The president was wrong about that.’

On Trump and Maduro:

“He wants to keep on blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.” In other words, unlike the whole drug charade the White House and Republicans tout, Trump’s intent appears to be regime change, and he’s made that clear, at least to Susie.

On the question of retribution:

Back in March, I asked Wiles: “Do you ever go in to Trump and say, “Look, this is not supposed to be a retribution tour?” “Yes, I do.’ She replied. ‘We have s loose agreement that score settling will end before the first 90 days are over.’” Suffice it to say, that did not happen!

She added, “I don’t think he’s on a retribution tour. A governing principle for him is, ‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to somebody else.’

And so people that have done bad things need to get out of government. In some cases, it may look like retribution. And there may be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me.”

On the case of Letitia James:

“Well, that might be the one retribution.”

On the economy:

“Wiles told me she thought Trump should pivot more often from world affairs to kitchen-table issues. ’More talk about the domestic economy and less about global matters.”

That’s ten items, in no particular rank order. You have to know, that 11 hours of interview material covered so much more than these ten items. One of those things was that Trump was included in the files. But you already know that. This post was designed to elevate several things you either didn’t know or wouldn’t expect Trump’s Chief of Staff to go on, and on, and on about. But she did. The most interesting thing about this breaking story is the way the Trump White House and its surrogates have responded. There has been universal support for Wiles. So far. Most seasoned Trump watchers are saying, just give it time. At the very least, there are sure to be bruised feelings, and lacerated egos. Over time…there are bound to be consequences and repercussions. “Tales From the Inner Sanctum!”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: https://thesphinxofcharlotte.com/. Find a new post each Wednesday.

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Subsequent editions of “Break It Down” will be mailed to your in-box. Consult the links below for more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-1

The Winter of Our Discontent

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Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, the Trump administration cut and/or laid off hundreds National Weather Service (NWS) employees. This happened as hurricane season was pending, and ahead of the normal array of winter storm events that assail large swaths of America, especially in the Northeast and Midwest. It was one of many moves that Elon Musk, and DOGE undertook with more than a modicum of élan. In one particular occasion, Musk actually brandished a chain saw to underscore the wildly exuberant nature of the cuts he and DOGE were making, including those at the NWS.

Less than two weeks before the official first day of winter, as the exigencies of the season begin making themselves felt, the natives, er a, I mean, the citizens are getting restless. They realize the agency’s severe understaffing will put millions of Americans in peril, unnecessarily. Alas, it appears, as sometimes doesn’t happen, the Trump administration is also coming to this realization.

The NWS is now in the process of working to hire back hundreds of positions earlier displaced by the administration. Admittedly, it’s happening slowly. So far about 80 final job offers have been accepted for meteorologists, hydrologists, and other specialized staff. 

The agency received permission in late July to add 450 people, after 550 people were cut by DOGE earlier. The decision to reverse course and authorize new hires came after lawmakers and citizens expressed concern about how the NWS cuts would impact public safety

As a result of the slow hiring, the NWS will enter yet another critical storm season with over a dozen forecast offices forced to operate with severe staffing shortages, undermining forecast accuracy and warnings during powerful and dangerous winter storms. 

(Lack of weather data due to Trump’s budget cuts impacted forecast for deadly Alaska storm).

This scenario is akin to the challenges and concerns raised ahead of hurricane season. Hurricanes, including three Category 5 storms, fortunately did not make landfall in the U.S.

Rick Spinrad, who led NOAA during the Biden administration, said “The administration is trying to put out a fire that they started. The 450 hires for the NWS won’t even cover the full shortfall.”

He further noted, “Also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that even if NWS could hire 450 people tomorrow, there is little chance that they would have the centuries of experience held by their predecessors.”

Staffing a weather forecast office requires 13 meteorologists. This enables fully staffing an office on a 24/7 basis. However, many NWS facilities are doing so with just 10 or 11 at the present time.  Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the NWS Employees Organization, the union that represents agency staff, observed that the weather forecast office in Goodland, Kansas is short eight meteorologists.

He said that the NWS offices in Rapid City, N.D. and Cheyenne, WY are also short 7 or 8 meteorologists, and that, where new people have been hired, those individuals are not all in place. It takes time to move personnel and match peoples’ skillsets with specific gaps in expertise around the country.

Winter storms can be deadly, and short staffing at the NWS has the potential to erode forecast accuracy and delay warnings, experts said.

There is still one forecast office, located in Hanford, Calif., that is too short on staffing to operate 24/7, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. The NWS is part of NOAA within the Commerce Department.

On the flipside of the debate on the current efficacy of weather agencies, NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster told CNN that the NWS is “Properly staffed to meet our mission of predicting weather hazards and providing essential services at all levels to keep communities informed, and we remain fully ready for the winter season ahead.”

She said the agency is on track to hire the remaining staff by the end of the 2026 fiscal year (September 30, 2026). Playing along, I will concede, that could happen. But, if we are not as lucky with winter storms as we were with hurricanes that did not reach landfall, we could find out first-hand, just how devastating winter storms can be. It has been said there is an axiomatic expression for every situation. Clearly, the apt bromide for this case is, it’s better to be lucky than good. Here’s hoping we avoid “The Winter of Our Discontent!”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: https://thesphinxofcharlotte.com/. Find a new post each Wednesday.

To subscribe, click on Follow in the bottom right-hand corner of my Home Page at http://thesphinxofcharlotte.com; enter your e-mail address in the designated space, and click on “Sign me up.”

Subsequent editions of “Break It Down” will be mailed to your in-box. Consult the links below for more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/09/weather/national-weather-service-hiring-gaps-winter-weather-storms-trump

Everybody Wants to be a Beast…Until It’s Time to do Beastly Things

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If you live in current-day America, you probably know there is an “imagine that” moment, or two, or ten, daily…that’s every single day. Today, I’ve picked one; the saga of the Department of War’s alleged “double-tap” of a boat of said to be narco-terrorists in the Caribbean on September 2. The controversy, if you believe there is one, revolves around a Washington Post story that attributed the call for a second attack on the boat, after it was disabled, to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. According to the story, Hegseth is alleged to have said, “Kill the all.”

Initially, Hegseth denied it, and in doing so, characterized the claim as fake news, manufactured by partisan Democrats. Interestingly enough, as time unfolded, that assertion melted into, it happened, but Hegseth, and shockingly, his boss, Donald Trump, knew nothing about it. They both, after the initial story disintegrated, blamed…I mean, attributed the decision for the second attack to Navy Vice-Admiral Frank Bradley.

Though it’s not surprising Trump and Hegseth conveniently found someone to throw under the bus, they did not do so until their cover story failed to hold up to scrutiny. Once even Republicans in Congress started questioning whether Hegseth’s version was counterfactual, and if so, was it also either illegal or unconstitutional, a new narrative was required. On Tuesday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a Republican, excoriated Hegseth for defending a second military strike on survivors of an initial attack on an alleged drug boat, after he had previously dismissed the report as fake news. 

At one point yesterday, Paul, speaking to reporters at the Capitol said, “Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium of the White House, they’re saying it did happen. The Senator went on to say, Hegseth was either “lying to us” about his knowledge of the strike or “he’s incompetent and didn’t know it happened.” 

Without a doubt, Paul suggested he thinks Hegseth is lying to the American public. He added, “So as a country, are we just going to let people lie to us, to our face? Are we going to let them kill people who they call enemies anytime in the world? Are we going to let them like when someone is stranded and holding on to the scraps of a boat put a second bomb on them? I think it’s outrageous and should be universally condemned.”

Let’s not lose the irony of this moment. A few months ago in early fall, Hegseth called virtually the entirety of military brass to meet at Marine Base Quantico, in Virginia. In that meeting he lectured them, he lambasted them, he lit into them in the most demeaning of ways. Near the end of his diatribe, aimed at impressing an audience of one, Donald J. Trump, he invited anyone not on board with his instructions, to retire from the military. But that was just one of the outrageous takeaways. He declared:

“We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

Be mindful, this meeting, and those comments came after the attack on the boat. Taking into account hindsight, it is almost as though, he was low key bragging about the dastardly deed and camouflaging it in an olio of “warrior ethos” and “fog of war.” 

Many people think they want the glory and success of being a “beast” but are unwilling to put in the hard work, practice, and mental toughness required to achieve it. It highlights the difference between wanting a result and being willing to endure the difficult process of the “hunt,” the “grind,” or the “practice” needed to get there. It was all good until it wasn’t. When the home team, aka, a number of Republicans, joined Democrats in questioning the legitimacy of his actions, the Secretary of War, or of Defense, or of whatever, appeared to have a case of second thoughts.

As I watched him back pedal from his aforementioned bravado, I was reminded of a phrase attributed to motivational speaker, Eric Thomas, who is credited with having said, “Everybody Wants to be a Beast…Until It’s Time to do Beastly Things!”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: https://thesphinxofcharlotte.com/. Find a new post each Wednesday.

To subscribe, click on Follow in the bottom right-hand corner of my Home Page at http://thesphinxofcharlotte.com; enter your e-mail address in the designated space, and click on “Sign me up.”

Subsequent editions of “Break It Down” will be mailed to your in-box. Consult the links below for more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/02/politics/rand-paul-hegseth-boat-strike