White House chief of staff Susie Wiles offered an inside President Donald Trump’s administration in a series of interviews published Tuesday by Vanity Fair magazine, delivering details and reservations that presidential aides usually save for memoirs.
From criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi as having āwhiffedā on the Jeffrey Epstein case to saying that no rational person could believe Elon Musk did a good job dismantling the United States Agency for International Development, Wiles revealed her own thoughts about her boss and the work of his aggressive administration. The assessments are even more notable because Wiles, before now, has maintained a .
Wiles dismissed Vanity Fairās work as a āhit piece,ā and a number of Cabinet officials and other aides rushed to her defense. But Wiles notably has not denied any details or quotes.
Here are some takeaways from Wiles’ interview:
Wiles defends Trump while comparing him to an alcoholic
Wiles described Trump as an intense figure who thinks in broad strokes yet is often unconcerned about process and policy details.
She assessed Trump as having āan alcoholicās personality,ā even though the president does not drink. But the personality trait is something she recognizes from her father, the famous sports broadcaster .
āHigh-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so Iām a little bit of an expert in big personalities,ā she said.
Said Wiles: āIām not an enabler. … I try to be thoughtful about what I even engage in. I guess time will tell whether Iāve been effective.ā
Trumpās revenge crusade has gone longer than Wiles initially wanted
Wiles affirmed Trumpās ruthlessness and determination to achieve retribution against those he considers his political enemies, especially those who .
āWe have a loose agreement that the score settling will end before the first 90 days are over,ā Wiles said early in Trumpās second administration, telling Vanity Fair she did try to tamp down Trumpās penchant for retribution.
But in August 2025, she shifted. āI donāt think heās on a retribution tour,ā she said, arguing Trump has a different principle: āāI donāt want what happened to me to happen to somebody else.āā
Still, she said, āthere may be an element of that from time to timeā and Trump āwill go for it … when thereās an opportunity.ā
āWho would blame him?ā she asked rhetorically. āNot me.ā
Asked about the prosecution of for mortgage fraud, Wiles allowed, āWell, that might be the one retribution.ā
On Epstein, Pam Bondi gets scorched and Trump was āwrongā about Bill Clinton
In some of her most eye-popping commentary, Wiles said Attorney General Pam Bondi āwhiffedā on handling the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, particularly trying to manage public expectations by suggesting the Justice Department had a client list waiting to be disclosed only for the administration to later say it .
Wiles also said Trump pushed false narratives that former President Bill Clinton frequented Epsteinās infamous island. āThere is no evidenceā those visits happened, according to Wiles, and there are no damning findings concerning Clinton at all.
āThe president was wrong about that,ā Wiles said.
Wiles pays attention to Trump’s inner circle ā and has thoughts
Wiles often sits to the side in the Oval Office, out of camera view. But sheās paying attention.
Vice President JD Vance has been āa conspiracy theorist for a decade,ā she said, and his MAGA conversion ā he once compared ā was āsort of political.ā
Elon Musk overstepped on his Department of Government Efficiency efforts, she said. She called him āa complete solo actor … an odd, odd duckā and an āavowed ketamine user.ā (Musk has acknowledged using the dissociative anesthetic.) She recalled having to explain to him that āyou canāt just lock people out of their officesā and said his left her āinitially aghast.ā
“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,” she said, adding that “no rational person could think the USAID process was a good one. Nobody.ā
She calls Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. āquirky Bobbyā and White House budget chief āa right-wing absolute zealot.ā
But in praising Kennedy, Wiles explained her embrace of the administrationās hard-liners: āHe pushes the envelope ā some would say too far. But I say in order to get back to the middle, you have to push it too far.ā
Wiles sees Trumpās tariffs as āmore painfulā than expected
Few events undermined Trumpās standing quite like his April 2 announcement of in which he announced import taxes ranging from 10% to 99% on most of the world. Trumpās move sparked recession fears and a delay in imposing his wider tariff strategy, leading to a rollercoaster of negotiations and new tariff threats.
Wiles called the April rollout āso much thinking out loudā and said there were internal disputes about it among Trumpās aides. She said she told aides to āwork into what heās already thinkingā and asked Vance to tell Trump to ānot talk about tariffs todayā until his team was āin complete unity.ā
Trump proceeded on his own.
Wiles said she believed a middle ground on tariffs would be successful. But, she concluded, āItās been more painful than I expected.ā
Wiles concedes mistakes on immigration
When a federal judge chided the administration for deporting Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump publicly defended the approach despite the administration telling the court it was a mistake. Wiles did not mince words, telling Vanity Fair at the time, “Weāve got to look harder at our process for deportation.ā
When the administration deported two mothers and their U.S. citizen children, including one who was a cancer patient, Wiles was even more plainspoken: āIt could be an overzealous Border Patrol agent, I donāt know. I canāt understand how you make that mistake, but somebody did.ā
Trump is more skeptical of Putinās intentions than reflected in public
After nearly four years of fighting, Trump has made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin can be persuaded to end the if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the eastern Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives that would bring Russia back into the economic world order.
āI actually think that President Putin wants to see it end,ā Trump told reporters Monday.
But Wiles offered deep skepticism to Vanity Fair about Putin.
āThe experts think that if he could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy,ā Wiles said in August, referring to the oblast that is a key part of Donbas.
āDonald Trump thinks he wants the whole country,ā Wiles told her interviewer.
For Trump, boat strikes are about knocking NicolƔs Maduro out of power
Wiles said in November that Trump āwants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.ā
Trump has repeatedly said Maduroās ādays are numberedā as the U.S. intensifies deadly attacks on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific. The administration alleges the targets are drug-smuggling cartels.
Still, Trump and administration officials have stopped short of saying they want to topple the Maduro regime. They insist the strikes, which have killed at least 95 people in since September, are a strategy to stem the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S.
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Associated Press reporters Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak contributed from Washington.
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