Does the Trump administration have a drinking problem?

Washington: Across the road from the Treasury building in Washington is Ned’s Club, a private members’ lounge that has become a place to see and be seen for Trump administration big wigs and a coterie of young movers and shakers in the US capital.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is a regular, while billionaire Mark Cuban and star CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins were reportedly among the early VIP members and guests when it opened – alongside the Trump administration – in early 2025.

It’s the kind of modern, flashy members’ club that tries to distance itself from the stuffier vibe of predecessors. Memberships start at $US5000 ($7000) a year.

It’s also where, according to a recent, explosive report in The Atlantic, FBI director Kash Patel likes to drink – sometimes to excess.

Patel’s alleged exploits – which he denies, and is suing the magazine over – raise fresh questions about the conduct of people Donald Trump has surrounded himself with at the very top of his administration.

The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick reported that Patel’s colleagues had described his “bouts of excessive drinking”, and not just at Ned’s, where he “is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication … while in the presence of White House and other administration staff”.

Patel was also said to sometimes consume excessively at the Poodle Room in Las Vegas, another members-only lounge located on the 89th floor of the Fontainebleau hotel and casino, where he “frequently spends parts of his weekends”.

The Atlantic reported that members of Patel’s security detail had difficulty waking him on several occasions, and that colleagues fear his drinking may have contributed to erratic workplace behaviour and high-profile mistakes in the job.

Patel has denied these allegations and filed a $US250 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine, calling the article false and malicious. “I have never been intoxicated on the job,” he said on Tuesday (US time).

Among the claims Patel’s lawyers said were fabricated was an alleged “freak-out” earlier this month when he found himself unable to log in to his computer, fearing he had been fired.

The lawsuit also claims The Atlantic only gave the FBI 111 minutes to respond to 19 detailed questions about Patel’s alleged behaviour – which, if true, would be quite unreasonable. However, Fitzpatrick – an experienced investigative reporter – has said the FBI and White House were given multiple opportunities to respond. The magazine said it stood by its reporting.

This masthead has not independently investigated or verified the allegations made about Patel, and does not judge their veracity. They certainly add to a narrative that has developed since he was filmed chugging beer in Italy with the US men’s ice hockey team after they won gold at the Winter Olympics. But that is hardly a crime.

Still, Patel is not the only one of Trump’s senior appointees whose behaviour has come into question. Former labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who resigned on Monday (US time), has been subject to a misconduct investigation after a complaint was filed with the inspector general.

Among those complaints was that Chavez-DeRemer texted employees to bring wine to her hotel room during work trips, sometimes in the middle of the day, The New York Post reported. The complaint also described her drinking in her office and made reference to a “stash” of champagne, bourbon and Kahlua that she apparently kept there, according to the Post.

Again, Chavez-DeRemer denies these claims. Upon her resignation, she said the allegations against her were “peddled by high-ranking deep state actors who have been co-ordinating with the one-sided news media and continue to undermine President Trump’s mission”. Even on the way out, fealty to the boss is paramount.

Then there is Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was grilled during his confirmation hearing last year about incidents that allegedly involved him being highly intoxicated at functions – all of which he dismissed as being “anonymous smears”.

Before that hearing, he vowed to give up drinking if confirmed in the role, promising the world would get “fully dialled-in Pete”, no matter the time of day or night.

“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he told former Fox host Megyn Kelly’s podcast in late 2024.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped Hegseth being regularly mocked as a boozehound on Saturday Night Live – along with another Trump appointee, Jeanine Pirro, who was once accused of being drunk while hosting her show (Fox News denied those claims at the time).

Trump, by most accounts, has little time for lushes. He is a teetotaller, and says he has never touched a drop of alcohol (famously preferring Diet Coke). His older brother, Fred Trump Jr, was an alcoholic who died young.

Even if the claims about Patel turn out to be exaggerated or misleading, they are believable – they “track”, as Americans like to say – because the Trump administration so often appears to be a refuge for frat boy types promoted above their station.

Loyalty to Trump and Trumpism is the highest quality an appointee can have. Appearing on Fox News after The Atlantic story broke, Patel was asked – and was happy to answer – what he had done to look into Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Patel said he had all the evidence and promised more arrests were coming soon. “I am never going to let this go,” he told host Maria Bartiromo. “They tried to thwart our elections and rig the entire system.” (Claims the 2020 election was rigged have been debunked.)

Like former attorney-general Pam Bondi before him, Patel has been under pressure to secure indictments of the president’s political enemies. Those attempts have failed so far, but he is determined to do so.

Perhaps that – and his open embrace of conspiracy theories – is an even bigger concern than whether he likes a drink.

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