US President Donald Trump will boast of his achievements in an address to the nation Wednesday as voters sour on his handling of the economy after nearly a year back in power.Republican Trump is also expected to tease policies for 2026, following a blitz of hardline protectionist and nationalist policies at the start of his second term.With next year’s US midterm elections looming, the 79-year-old faces mounting anger among Americans about the high cost of living.Trump did not say what he would talk about in the primetime speech from the White House at 9pm, saying only on social media that “it has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”But the White House said it would focus on his “historic accomplishments” including tackling inflation, which Trump blames on his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, and tackling immigration.”It’s going to be a really good speech. I was just in the Oval Office with the President discussing it,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing on Tuesday.”He’s going to talk a lot about the accomplishments over the past 11 months, all that he’s done to bring our country back to greatness, and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years.”Leavitt separately told Fox News that Trump would be “maybe teasing some policy that will be coming in the New Year as well.”Billionaire Trump, the oldest elected president in US history, has boasted of a new “golden age” in America.He recently rated the economy as “A++++” and rages against what he called an “affordability hoax” by rival Democrats.- ‘Make America affordable again’ -But US voters are increasingly angry about high prices of everything from gas to and groceries, which experts say are partly fueled by the tariffs he has slapped on trading partners. According to a poll by the University of Chicago for The Associated Press, published last week, only 31 percent of Americans are satisfied with Trump’s economic policy.He also faces criticism from within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement for focusing on peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza and on tensions with Venezuela instead of domestic issues.Now there are signs that his team have started to realize the issue could hurt Republicans in next year’s midterm elections for the control of Congress.Republicans lost heavily in elections in November for the mayor of New York and governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, while running them close in a previously safe area Tennessee.The president is ramping up his domestic travel to push his economic message.Last week in Pennsylvania he promised to “make America affordable again,” and on Friday he is due to give another campaign-style rally in North Carolina on Friday.Vice President JD Vance — who is rapidly becoming Trump’s messenger on the issue as he eyes his own presidential run in 2028 — urged voters to show patience during a speech on Tuesday.”They know Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance said in the key, blue-collar swing state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday. “They know what Joe Biden broke is not going to get fixed in a week.”Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair article published Tuesday that his program would feature “more talks about the domestic economy and less about Saudi Arabia.”

Donald Trump said Tuesday he stood by his chief of staff Susie Wiles after she said the US president had an “alcoholic’s personality” in an astonishing interview with Vanity Fair.Wiles also called Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist,” branded tech tycoon Elon Musk an “odd, odd duck,” and gave juicy opinions on other Trump administration figures in the lengthy piece.Trump has previously described Wiles, the first female White House chief of staff, as the “ice maiden” and credited her for her role in driving forward his second presidency behind the scenes.But the 68-year-old Wiles now finds herself firmly in the headlines after the Vanity Fair story, which the magazine said was based on a series of interviews with veteran political journalist Chris Whipple over the past year.Wiles dismissed the article as a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” accusing the magazine of trying to “paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative” about Trump’s team.”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 wrote.Trump himself told the New York Post that Wiles was right to describe him as having an alcoholic’s personality — even though he is teetotal.”You see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,” Trump said.He added that Wiles had “done a fantastic job.”Vanity Fair quoted Wiles — whose own father, the NFL announcer Pat Summerall was an alcoholic — as saying that Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality,” and “operates (with) a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”In the wide-ranging series of interviews, Wiles said she was “not an enabler” to Trump, who has unleashed an unprecedented display of presidential power since his return to power in January, adding “I’m also not a bitch.”- ‘Conspiracy theorist’ -But she was forthright about Space X and Tesla boss Elon Musk’s role as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency in the first months of Trump’s term.Describing billionaire Musk as a “complete solo actor” and “avowed” ketamine user, she criticized DOGE’s shutdown of the USAID international aid department. “No rational person could think the USAID process was a good one,” Vanity Fair quoted her as saying.Wiles hailed what she called a “core team” of Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller but said Vance had been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade” regarding the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.Trump’s chief of staff had barbed comments for Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying Bondi “completely whiffed” on the promised release to right-wing influencers of documents about convicted sex offender Epstein.She called Russ Vought, the hardline chief of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a “right-wing absolute zealot,” Vanity Fair said.The magazine said Wiles gave revealing insights into Trump’s policies on key domestic and foreign policy issues too.She said she had a “loose agreement” with Trump to end the “score settling” against his political enemies after 90 days, even as he has continued to target his foes with calls for their prosecution.On Ukraine, Wiles said that Trump believes Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants the whole country,” despite Washington’s push for a peace deal.Top Trump cabinet members lined up to defend Wiles and lash out at the Vanity Fair piece.Vance said in a speech in Pennsylvania that he and Wiles had “joked in private and in public” about him believing conspiracy theories.”We have our disagreements, we agree on much more than we disagree, but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States,” Vance said in a speech in Pennsylvania.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that there was “absolutely nobody better!”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing that Wiles was “incredible” and accused Vanity Fair of the “bias of omission.”