Most people turn to coffee or tea when they’re in need of a morning pick-me-up. Mark Meadows, who served as Donald Trump’s chief of staff from 2020 to 2021, inadvertently went a different route.
In Cassidy Hutchinson’s new memoir, Enough, the former White House aide writes that Meadows accidentally got drunk on White Claw, the alcoholic seltzer, during a morning meeting, the New York Post reports.
Meadows drank three and half cans of the spiked sparkling water while meeting with Russell Vought, who was then the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Meadows, a Southern Baptist and teetotaler, did not realize the drinks were of the adult variety.
“I was sitting here with Russ and started to get thirsty,” Hutchinson reports Meadows as saying. “I know you girls keep my fridge stocked with sparkling water, so I went and got one. I sat back down and took a sip and thought, ‘Wow, this is real good!’”
He went through three of the drinks—blackberry and grapefruit flavored—and offered one to Vought, who looked at him “all weird” and declined.
“Russ says to me, ‘Sir, I know times are hard now, but are they really that bad?’” Meadows recalled. “And then…it hit me. My head started feeling funny, and I look down at the can and I saw that it was alcohol. I’m drinking alcohol on a Monday morning and I’ve never had a drink before.”
Enough was published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster. A critic for Kirkus called the memoir “a mostly compelling account of one woman’s struggles within Trumpworld.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
