Trump's Staff Infection - October 15, 2026

Cenk Uygur (0:00)

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Hello.

Cenk Uygur (6:26)

Welcome to The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian with you guys. So we've got women getting punched in the face at rallies, and the twist there though is conservatives now saying, maybe we shouldn't do that as Donald Trump is enthusiastically in favor of it.

We've got massive corruption at the Trump White House on many different levels.

Trump considering firing someone, obviously not over the corruption, don't be ridiculous. And the amount of money they've made from all of that is unreal. So, and then Ukraine has Starlink pulled in the middle of a bombing campaign by Russia that hit civilian buildings. Was that Trump's decision or Elon's decision? Cuz if it's Elon's decision, we're in a new world where the governments matter less and less. So there's a lot to go over here today.

Ana Kasparian (7:22)

I don't know how new that world is, Cenk, but we'll discuss later.

Cenk Uygur (7:25)

We'll discuss, okay, that's what we made this show for. All right, guys, so lots to get to. Let's start here.

Donald Trump is wondering if you should fire his chief of staff. Interesting. I'm curious as to why. She seems to have done a brilliant job at corruption and helping all of his donors, but he's getting a little antsy. So let's try to find out what happened here, Ana.

Ana Kasparian (7:49)

Yes, it's true. It appears that President Trump has been asking around and asking for advice about his chief of staff and former Netanyahu consultant, Susie Wiles. And look, one thing that you should know about Trump by now is that he's always looking for a scapegoat. He's looking at his polling numbers, not good, very bad. He's looking for someone to blame. Susie Wiles, not particularly a fan of hers, but here's what we've learned through Politico's playbook. At moments of frustration and adversity, President Donald Trump has long made a habit of calling up friends to ask what they think of his advisors and whether he should consider making changes. These days, he's asking about Susie Wiles, the once unassailable White House chief of staff. Trump has been soliciting allies' view of Wiles and musing about replacements for his top aid according to four people with direct knowledge of the conversations. Okay, so let's pause for a second.

On one hand, this does sound like something Trump would do. On the other hand, these are four anonymous sources who spoke to political playbook. And one thing that's been pretty clear about the Trump administration is the knives are always out. And Susie Wiles in particular is not someone that, especially the old MAGA types are fans of. She's a gatekeeper, she prevents the president from being able to sit down and have face to face meetings with certain individuals. So there is a possibility that this is a hatchet job. At the same time, if anyone deserves a hatchet job, it is Susie Wiles. So let me give you some more details. So since Trump operates in the sea of vipers, he is getting a ton of encouragement to basically axe her. One senior elected Republican official who received a call from Trump said the president had raised the first honest questions about Susie. Another person said that Susie has burned a lot of bridges and people don't like her basically. Some have been sharing unfavorable coverage of Susie Wiles and what her family members have been up to. And this is something that I do not believe has had any impact on Trump's decision making whatsoever. The claim is that Susie Wiles' daughter is enriching her self from the proximity to the White House, to which I say, who isn't? Everyone surrounding Trump is enriching themselves through the office of the presidency. But okay, so Trump is allegedly irritated, according to Politico, over reports about several long time advisors of his profiting from foreign consulting businesses, come on. And that includes top allies to Susie Wiles, James Blair and Chris LaSavita. If you guys can remember, there was this big scandal that was reported recently about the two working for Russia. And then Katie Wiles, the chief of staff's daughter, okay, was reported to be representing the pro-Russian semi-autonomous Bosnian Serb territory for which Blair and LaSavita also did work.