https://www.axios.com/2025/12/16/susie-wiles-vanity-fair-trump-vance-epstein-musk
Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, during a roundtable in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8. Photo: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Susie Wiles, President Trump's chief of staff, chronicled the chaotic inner workings of the White House in a series of shockingly candid, unfiltered interviews with Vanity Fair throughout the year, published Tuesday.
Why it matters: Wiles discussed Trump's "alcoholic's personality," Elon Musk's drug use and USAID chaos, Vance's "sort of political" conversion, the Epstein files debacle, boat strikes targeting Maduro, and whether Trump will defy the 22nd Amendment.
- Her interviews offer the most unvarnished look yet at power and peril in Trump's second term.
- Wiles offered blunt assessments of influential figures around Trump including Musk, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, who she called "a right-wing absolute zealot."
- She also denied speculation that Trump would defy the 22nd Amendment and try to run for a third presidential term. "But he sure is having fun with it," she said, adding that he knows it's "driving people crazy."
What they're saying: Wiles cast the two-part Vanity Fair profile as a "disingenuously framed hit piece" on her, Trump, the Cabinet and White House staff.
- "Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story," she wrote on X Tuesday in her first post in over a year. "I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team."
- "President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her."
- "I very rarely speak out about my father's staffers, but there is no one on Earth more equipped to serve my father as Chief of Staff than Susie," Donald Trump Jr., one of the president's sons, said on X.
What the profile said: Wiles "is a 'go to church every Sunday, uses a swear word very, very rarely'" type of person, James Blair, her deputy chief of staff said. "She doesn't raise her voice. But she likes being around junkyard dogs."
Read about some standout moments:
Trump "has an alcoholic's personality"
Flashback: Wiles, who as a young woman staged an intervention that got her famous father into rehab, drew a comparison between Trump and her late father, NFL legend Pat Summerall.
- While Trump has avoided alcohol his whole life, Wiles said he shares some of the personality traits she deems similar to an alcoholic.
State of play: "High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink," she said. "And so I'm a little bit of an expert in big personalities."
- Trump "operates [with] a view that there's nothing he can't do," Wiles said. "Nothing, zero, nothing."
Wiles on Musk: an "odd, odd duck"
Driving the news: Wiles said that Musk, who oversaw major government downsizing, is an "avowed" ketamine user who slept in a sleeping bag in the Executive Office Building in the daytime.
- "The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him," she said "… He's an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are."
Zoom in: Wiles said she was initially "aghast" at Musk's dissolution of USAID and that "no rational person" could think his process was good.
- She added that there are details of the response the president "doesn't know and never will."
Wiles would support Vance 2028 presidential run
What we're watching: Wiles said she'd be "one of the first people" to support a 2028 presidential run from Vice President JD Vance. She added that if he ran, he'd secure the GOP nomination.
- Vance's conversion from a Never Trumper to MAGA diehard was "sort of political," Wiles said. While discussing the Epstein files, she also said he's been a "conspiracy theorist for a decade."
The intrigue: Vance, in an interview for the Vanity Fair piece, praised Wiles for not trying to "control" or "manipulate" Trump like his first-term staff.
- "There is this idea that people have that I think was very common in the first administration," he said, "that their objective was to control the president or influence the president, or even manipulate the president because they had to in order to serve the national interest. Susie just takes the diametrically opposite viewpoint."
Trump and Epstein were "young, single playboys together"
What's inside: Trump is mentioned in what Wiles called "the Epstein file," but he's not documented doing anything "awful." She said the president and the convicted sex offender were "young, single, playboys together."
- Wiles denied that Trump drew a nude sketch for Epstein's 50th birthday.
Friction point: She also said Trump was "wrong" to say there was incriminating evidence against former President Clinton in the Epstein files. "There is no evidence" Clinton visited Epstein's private island, she said.
- She criticized Attorney General Bondi's handling of the Epstein records: "I think she completely whiffed" by giving influencers "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."
Maduro, not drug busts, fuel Trump's boat strikes
Between the lines: Wiles contradicted the administration's messaging on deadly boat strikes. She said Trump "wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me say that he will."
- The administration has previously said that the boat strikes are in an effort to halt the flow of drugs to the U.S., not to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The fine print: She conceded that attacking targets on Venezuela's mainland would require congressional approval.
- "The president believes in harsh penalties for drug dealers, as he's said many, many times," Wiles said about the attacks on boats.
Comey, Letitia James and Trump's retribution streak
Behind the scenes: Wiles said she and Trump had a "loose agreement" to end so-called "score settling" by the end of his first 90 days.
- "I don't think he wakes up thinking about retribution," she said. "But when there's an opportunity, he will go for it."
- She admitted the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James was retribution, while insisting the president was not on a retribution tour.
- She also conceded the targeting of former FBI director James Comey "does look vindictive."
Reality check: A federal judge threw out Trump's indictments of James Comey and Letitia James in November. While Bondi vowed to appeal, the Justice Department has yet to do so.
Go deeper: Trump is "wrong" about Clinton-Epstein accusations, WH chief of staff says
