In candid interviews with Vanity Fair, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles opened up about President Donald Trump and his Cabinet over the first year of Trump’s second term.
Wiles took part in 11 interviews that occurred in real time. Two parts of those interviews were published on Tuesday.
In them, Wiles offered unreserved descriptions of top figures in the administration — including Trump, who she said has an “alcoholic’s personality.”
Wiles said Trump, who has repeatedly said he doesn’t drink alcohol, said he “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
Trump, in an exclusive interview with the New York Post, said Wiles was “right” to tell Vanity Fair that he has an “alcoholic’s personality.”
“I’ve said that many times about myself. 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 New York Post.
Asked if he had full confidence in Wiles, the president said, “Oh, she’s fantastic.”
In Vanity Fair, Wiles also called Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist for a decade” and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “a right-wing absolute zealot.” Billionaire Elon Musk, she said, was an “odd duck, as I think geniuses are” and “avowed ketamine [user].”
Wiles also weighed in on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, Musk’s slashing of federal government agencies and programs, the chaotic rollout of Trump’s tariff plans, the administration’s aims for Venezuela and more.
Wiles, responding to Vanity Fair’s articles, said it is a “disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles listens as President Donald Trump meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
“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 wrote on X.
“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,” Wiles added.
ABC News has reached out to Condé Nast, Vanity Fair’s parent company, for comment on Wiles’ criticism.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Wiles, first on social media then in a gaggle with reporters outside the White House. She called the Vanity Fair reporting “disingenuous” and said there was a “bias of omission” that excluded context and comments from Wiles and others in the administration.
“What I’ll say about our chief of staff, as you’ve seen from not just myself, but also the entire Cabinet, in a groundswell of support from people on Capitol Hill who don’t even work in this building, about how incredible Susie Wiles has been to President Trump. And he’s been able to accomplish so much because of his leadership and his tenacity, but also because of chief of staff Wiles’ leadership and her ability to effectuate his agenda,” Leavitt said.
Bondi supported Wiles in a social media post on X. The attorney general did not respond to Wiles’ comments on her handling of the Epstein files in the post.
“My dear friend [Susie Wiles] fights every day to advance President Trump’s agenda – and she does so with grace, loyalty, and historic effectiveness. Any attempt to divide this administration will fail. Any attempt to undermine and downplay President Trump’s monumental achievements will fail. We are family.
We are united,” Bondi wrote.
Vance, at an event Tuesday in Pennsylvania, said he hadn’t read the Vanity Fair article but responded to Wiles’ remark that he’s been a “conspiracy theorist for the past decade.” Wiles made the comment on Vance while discussing the Epstein files.
“I haven’t looked at the article. I, of course, have heard about it. But conspiracy theorist, sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance told reporters.
“And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time,” he added.
Musk has not publicly responded to the Vanity Fair articles.
Here are some notable exchanges from Wiles’ interviews with Vanity Fair.
Wiles says Bondi ‘completely whiffed’ on Epstein controversy
Wiles said she underestimated the controversy surrounding the Epstein files. She discussed the moment back in February when Bondi handed conservative social media influencers a book of files related to Epstein but the binders contained old information.
“I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said of Bondi.
“First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk,” Wiles said.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, April 30, 2025, in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
Wiles said she read what she called “the Epstein file” and that Trump is in it.
“[Trump] is in the file. And we know he’s in the file. And he’s not in the file doing anything awful,” she said.
Wiles also said that Trump “was on [Epstein’s] plane…he’s on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever — I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together.”
Vanity Fair notes Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s infamous private island, Little St. James, “supposedly 28 times.”
“There is no evidence” those visits happened, Wiles told the magazine.
Wiles on Trump’s Venezuela strategy, tariff rollout, pardons and more
On President Trump’s strategy on Venezuela, Wiles told Vanity Fair: “He wants to keep on blowing boats up until [Nicolas] Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.”
On the president’s global tariff policy, a centerpiece of his economic agenda, Wiles said she tried to have Trump wait to unveil them until there was more unity among his team but that he ultimately went ahead.
“So much thinking out loud is what I would call it,” Wiles said of Trump’s tariff plan rollout. “There was a huge disagreement over whether [tariffs were] a good idea.”
President Donald Trump speaks with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during an “Invest America” roundtable discussion in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, June 9, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Wiles also said there’s been a few times where she’s been “outvoted” in the administration.
One example, Wiles said, was Trump’s Day 1 pardons of Jan. 6 rioters.
Vanity Fair asked if she ever asked the president, “‘Wait a minute, do you really want to pardon all 1,500 January 6 convicts, or should we be more selective?'”
“I did exactly that,” Wiles replied. “I said, ‘I am on board with the people that were happenstancers or didn’t do anything violent. And we certainly know what everybody did because the FBI has done such an incredible job.'”
She said eventually she “sort of got on board.”
