High-ranking members of the Trump administration came to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ defense on Tuesday after a two-part series, based on multiple interviews with Wiles, included her at-times critical take on the administration’s work so far.
Wiles, who is known to mostly stay out of the public eye, sat for 11 interviews with Chris Whipple for Vanity Fair. The articles, published Tuesday, covered a wide range of topics, including the shuttering of USAID, the Epstein files and her thoughts on various administration officials.
The interviews gave an unfiltered look at Wiles, conducted over lunch in her office or at her rental home while she was doing laundry.
In a social media post after the articles were published, Wiles called the series a “disingenuously framed hit piece.”
As the first female White House chief of staff, her role in the administration is historic. Wiles is close to President Donald Trump and his family, and is a longtime Florida politico, having worked for several Republicans in the Sunshine State, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott.
Wiles on USAID and DOGE
One of the more defining moments of Trump’s second term so far was Elon Musk’s role in the Department of Government Efficiency, commonly referred to as DOGE.
Wiles told Vanity Fair that she was shocked when DOGE dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“I was initially aghast,” she said. “Because I think anybody that pays attention to government and has ever paid attention to USAID believed, as I did, that they do very good work.”
Wiles said that the way Musk handled shutting down the aid organization is “not the way” she would have done it. While suggesting Musk is a ketamine user, Wiles called him an “odd, odd duck,” but also a genius. She said she told the tech billionaire that he couldn’t just lock people out of their offices. Wiles said she called Secretary of State Marco Rubio to let him know he’d have to be “the custodian” of USAID.
“Elon’s attitude is you have to get it done fast. If you’re an incrementalist, you just won’t get your rocket to the moon,” she told the outlet. “And so with that attitude, you’re going to break some china. But no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody.”
Wiles on other Trump policy
Wiles also weighed in on Trump’s approach to immigration. She was interviewed by Whipple after the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law that allowed him to deport more than 200 alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. The administration insisted it was deporting violent people, while admitting Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly sent to El Salvador. Wiles told Whipple in March that the administration has “got to look harder at our process for deportation.”
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made rounds in many American cities in the following months, Wiles said in April that if an individual has a known gang or criminal past, “it’s probably fine to send them to El Salvador or whatever.”
“But if there is a question, I think our process has to lean toward a double-check,” she said.
Trump’s second term has also been marked by his decision to implement tariffs. His “Liberation Day” announcement, when Trump announced high tariffs on countries across the world, was heavily debated by advisers, Wiles said, but she ultimately told them to get on board before the president made the official announcement. The rollout of tariffs has been “more painful” than Wiles expected.
In the second part of Vanity Fair’s look inside the White House, Wiles said that the results of the November elections were a referendum on Trump’s second term so far, and that the president needs to talk more about the domestic economy and less about what is happening in Saudi Arabia.
Trump has highlighted his conflict-ending successes since taking back the Oval Office, including between Israel and Hamas earlier this year, but Wiles said that while Americans like having peace in the world, “that’s not why he was elected.”
Still, the president continues his campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Over the last several months, the Defense Department has confirmed 22 strikes on Venezuelan boats, killing at least 87 people.
Wiles said Trump wants to “keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle” and said she believes the Venezuelan president will concede, though the administration has insisted that its actions in the Caribbean are about stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S.
“The president believes in harsh penalties for drug dealers, as he’s said many, many times. … These are not fishing boats, as some would like to allege,” she said.
“I’m saying that this is a war on drugs. (It’s) unlike another one that we’ve seen. But that’s what this is.”
Wiles on Putin and Epstein
Whipple questioned Wiles about the president’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, particularly as Trump has consistently said ending the Russia-Ukraine war is a priority for him. She said the yearslong relationship includes visible admiration, but said she’s received mixed signals from Putin during phone calls, with some friendly and “some of them not.”
Wiles noted that before Trump met Putin in Alaska in August, he had already given up on the idea of reaching a ceasefire, knowing the Russian leader wasn’t backing down. It’s become a sticking point for the president, who campaigned on ending the war and said he could negotiate a ceasefire on day one back in office.
Another issue that’s plagued Trump’s second term so far is release of the files related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. On the campaign trail, Trump promised he would work to declassify the Epstein files, something his Republican base celebrated. As time went on back in Washington, his supporters grew frustrated that he wasn’t following through.
Wiles said she underestimated the scandal’s importance.
“Whether he was an American CIA asset, a Mossad asset, whether all these rich, important men went to that nasty island and did unforgivable things to young girls,” she said, “I mean, I kind of knew it, but it’s never anything I paid a bit of attention to.”
Wiles did not spare Attorney General Pam Bondi from the ire of the public after promoting the potential release of the files and later backtracking, saying that she “completely whiffed” on what the “very targeted” group cared about. She said she’s reviewed the information compiled about Epstein, and while Trump is named, he is not documented “doing anything awful.”
“They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever–I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together,” Wiles said.
She also noted that when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with the jailed former Epstein girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell in July, neither Wiles nor Trump knew about Maxwell being transferred to a lower security prison.
Vanity Fair confirmed that just before publication, Wiles still does not know why Maxwell was moved.
Circling the wagons for Wiles
Shortly after the Vanity Fair articles were published, Wiles took to social media to criticize the series. In her first post since October 2024, Wiles said the story was a “disingenuously framed hit piece” on her, Trump and the other Cabinet officials.
“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team,” she said on X.
“The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade,” Wiles’ post continued.
Other Trump allies and Cabinet members came to Wiles’ defense Tuesday morning, pointing to the level of loyalty that is among the top officials in the second Trump administration.
Russ Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, who Wiles is quoted in the piece as calling a “right-wing absolute zealot,” shared a message online in support of Trump’s chief of staff.
“Susie Wiles is an exceptional chief of staff. I have had the privilege of working in President Trump’s White House for every single minute of his two terms. Let me be very clear: It has never worked this well or been more oriented towards accomplishing what he wants to accomplish,” Vought said. “In my portfolio, she is always an ally in helping me deliver for the president. And this hit piece will not slow us down.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also came to Wiles’ defense. She said Wiles has helped Trump achieve success since being back in office and there is no one more loyal than Wiles. The entire administration is grateful for Wiles’ leadership and stands “united fully behind her,” Leavitt said.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, FBI Director Kash Patel, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and several others all issued statements Tuesday in response to the two-part series.
Speaking at an event Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Vice President JD Vance was asked about Wiles calling him a decade-long “conspiracy theorist” that switched from hating Trump to becoming a “MAGA acolyte” for political reasons.
Vance laughed and replied, “sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true.”
Trump also backed his chief of staff. In a phone call with the New York Post Tuesday afternoon, Trump said he wasn’t offended by Wiles’ remarks.
“No, she meant that I’m – 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," Trump said. “I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality.”
The president has often noted that his older brother Fred died at the age of 42 in 1981 due to an alcohol-induced heart attack, which led to Trump’s decision to be sober.
“I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that – what’s the word? Not possessive – possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before," Trump told the outlet.
Trump also said he hasn’t read Vanity Fair’s article about Wiles because he doesn’t read that news outlet, but Wiles has “done a fantastic job.”
“I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguides,” he said, adding multiple times throughout the call that he thinks Wiles is “fantastic.”