WASHINGTON- President Trump’s chief of staff is fighting back after giving a series of extraordinarily candid interviews with Vanity Fair in which she offers scathing judgments about the president and blunt assessments of his administration’s shortcomings.
The profile of Susie Wiles, Trump’s reserved and influential top aide since he took office, sparked a scandal in Washington and sparked a response to the White House crisis that involved nearly every figure in Trump’s orbit issuing a public defense.
In 11 interviews conducted during West Wing lunches and meetings, Wiles described billionaire Elon Musk’s early failures and drug use during his time in government as well as the mistakes of Atty. General Pam Bondi in her public handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Wiles also acknowledged that Trump had launched a campaign of retaliation against his perceived political enemies.
“I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retaliation,” Wiles told Chris Whipple, the Vanity Fair writer who has written extensively about former chiefs of staff, “but when there’s an opportunity, he’ll take it.”
Wiles also cited missteps in the administration’s immigration crackdown, contradicted a Trump claim about Epstein and former President Clinton and described Vice President JD Vance as a “conspiracy theorist.”
Hours after Vanity Fair’s tell-all was published on Tuesday, Wiles and key members of Trump’s inner circle vigorously defended his tenure, calling the story a “hit piece” that left out exculpatory context.
“The article published early this morning is a dishonest blockbuster article about me and the best president, White House staff and cabinet in history,” Wiles said in an article on X, his first in over a year. “Important context was ignored and much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out.”
The profile was reported with the knowledge and participation of other senior staff, and illustrated with a photograph of Wiles and some of Trump’s closest aides, including Vance, Bondi and adviser Stephen Miller.
The profile reveals a lot about a chief of staff who has kept a low profile in the West Wing, continuing her applied management philosophy throughout the 2024 election when she was Trump’s last campaign manager: She let Trump be Trump. “Sir, remember that I am the chief of staff, not your boss,” she recalled telling the president.
Trump has publicly emphasized how much he values Wiles as a trusted aide. He did so at a rally last week where he called her “Susie Trump.” In an interview with Whipple, she talked about having difficult conversations with Trump on a daily basis, but that she chooses her battles.
“So no, I’m not an enabler. I’m not a bitch either. I try to think about what I’m getting into,” Wiles said. “I guess time will tell if I was effective.”
Despite his passive style, Wiles shared concerns about Trump’s initial approach to tariff policy, calling the levies “more painful than I expected.” She had urged him, unsuccessfully, to end his campaign of retaliation during his first 90 days in office, to allow the administration to move on to more important issues. And she had opposed Trump’s blanket pardon of defendants on Jan. 6, including those convicted of violent crimes.
Wiles also acknowledged that the administration needs to “take a closer look at our deportation process,” adding that in at least one case, mistakes were made when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested and deported two American mothers and their children to Honduras. One of the children was being treated for stage 4 cancer.
“I don’t understand how you made that mistake, but someone did,” she said.
On foreign policy, Wiles defended the administration’s attack on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and said the president “wants to keep blowing up boats until [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro cries uncle,” suggesting that the goal is to seek to change the government.
While Trump has discussed possible ground strikes in Venezuela, Wiles acknowledged that such a move would require authorization from Congress.
“If he allows activity on land, then it’s war, so [we’d need] Congress,” she said.
In an exchange with Whipple, she characterized Trump, who abstains from alcohol, as having an “alcoholic personality,” explaining that “high-functioning alcoholics, or alcoholics in general, have an exaggerated personality when they drink.”
He “operates [with] an opinion that there is nothing he cannot do. Nothing, zero, nothing,” she said.
But Trump, in an interview with the New York Post, defended Wiles and his comments, saying he would indeed be an alcoholic if he drank alcohol.
“She did a fantastic job,” Trump said. “I think from what I heard the facts were wrong and the interviewer was very misguided – deliberately misguided.”
Wiles also blamed members of Trump’s Cabinet for the persistence of the Epstein saga, pointing out that the president’s chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, had advocated for the release of all Justice Department files related to the investigation for many years. Despite Trump’s claims that Clinton visited the private island of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, Wiles acknowledged, Trump is “wrong on that.”
Wiles added that Bondi “completely sniffed out” the way she handled the Epstein files, an issue that created a divide within MAGA.
“First she gave them binders full of nothing. And then she said the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There’s no client list, and it certainly wasn’t on her desk,” Wiles said.
Wiles added that she had read the Epstein investigation files and acknowledged that Trump was mentioned there, but said “he’s not in the file doing anything horrible.”
Vance, who she said had been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade,” said he joked with Wiles about conspiracies in private before praising him.
“I’ve never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go thwart him or subvert his will behind the scenes. And that’s what you expect from a staffer,” Vance told reporters. “I have never seen her disloyal to the President of the United States and that makes her the best White House chief of staff the President could ask for.”
Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, whom Wiles described to Whipple as an “absolute right-wing fanatic.” said in a post on social media that she is an “exceptional chief of staff”. Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, said “the entire administration is grateful for her consistent leadership and fully united behind her.”
Wiles told Vanity Fair that she would be happy to stay in the role for as long as the president wanted, noting that she had time to devote to her work, being divorced and with her children out of the house.
Trump had a rocky relationship with his chiefs of staff during his first term, going through four in four years. Its longest-serving chief of staff, former Gen. John Kelly, served a year and a half.
