Trump's chief of staff admits he's lying about Venezuela and more.
Susie Wiles and Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 4, 2025.
(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Since September 2, the Trump administration has been bombing ships in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking. It was always a lame excuse, but now we can say with confidence that it was a blatant lie. This is thanks to the testimony of one of Trump's top aides, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, which was published in the magazine. blockbuster Vanity Fair article Chris Whipple.
On November 2, Whipple writes: Wiles said: “[Trump] wants to continue blowing up boats until [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro is crying, uncle. And people much smarter than me in this matter say that he will do it.” In other words, all the talk about narco-terrorism was fiction. On Tuesday Trump announced that he initiated a naval blockade of Venezuela until “they return to the United States of America all the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.” This escalation (and the rationale for outright plunder) lends credence to Wiles' contention that regime change in Venezuela has been the driving force behind policy all along.
Over the past year, Whipple has conducted 11 extensive interviews with Wiles. form the basis of it Vanity Fair piece. The article is noteworthy for two reasons: who Wiles is and the amazing things she said on the record. As chief of staff, Wiles holds the most important position in the White House after the president himself. Her reputation is that she is a professional and effective manager who knows how to implement Trump's plans, and unlike many of the self-aggrandizing figures who have gathered around Trump, Wiles was seen as someone who keeps a low profile.
However, Whipple shows us a very different Wiles – a man who constantly disdains Trump and those around him, while distancing himself (albeit slightly) from the most controversial actions of the White House.
Wiles said Trump has an “alcoholic personality,” which she was able to notice because her father, the late football player Pat Summerall, was an alcoholic. That characterization is likely to be especially offensive to Trump, a renowned teetotaler whose brother died of alcoholism. Wiles says Vice President J.D. Vance has been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade” and that his transformation from Never Trumper to MAGA fanatic was “sort of political.” She calls former DOGE head Elon Musk “discovered ketamine.” [user]” and “strange, strange duck.” When asked about Musk's extreme political tweet, Wiles responded, “I think that's when he microdoses.” And she calls Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, “an absolute right-wing bigot.”
Wiles lends his authority to many of the harshest criticisms of the Trump presidency, portraying it as lawless and chaotic. She acknowledges that Trump's targeting of political opponents, such as former FBI chief James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, is motivated in part by score settling and retribution.
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Wiles admits that Trump was on Jeffrey Epstein's plane and describes their friendship as “sort of like young, single playboys.” She's scathing about Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of Epstein's files, saying, “I think she got absolutely pissed when she realized that this was the same task force that was taking care of this. First she gave them folders full of nothing. And then she said 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.”
She claims she was “initially taken aback” by Musk's plans to cut USAID, “because I think anyone who pays attention to government and has ever paid attention to USAID believes, as I do, that they are doing a very good job.” She also distances herself from Trump's pardoning of the Jan. 6 rioters, as well as the actions of “overzealous” Border Patrol agents.
Taken together, Wiles' list of complaints and denials paints a dismal picture of the Trump presidency. Her comments about Musk using ketamine were so damaging that Wiles tried to deny them. tell New York Times“It's funny. I wouldn't say that and I don't know.” The newspaper went on to say, “Whipple played a tape for the Times in which she could be heard saying this.” Like Whipple notesDespite White House complaints that he quoted out of context, none of his facts were disputed.
How did a seasoned political professional fall into the trap of making so many official comments that could be detrimental to both her employer and her job? Of course, it is a time-honored practice for White House officials to convey their objections to government policies to friendly book authors in order to create plausible deniability of historical facts. Colin Powell, Secretary of State under George W. Bush, was an experienced practitioner of this art and ensured that he would be portrayed in positive light chroniclers such as Bob Woodward. Perhaps Wiles's miscalculation was that he did not anticipate how quickly Whipple would turn his sensational articles into articles.
But there is another reason why Wiles could afford to be frank. Comments like these would shame most administrations, but Donald Trump and those around him feel no shame. It is amazing that the White House (including Trump) rallied around Wiles. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt published“Chief of Staff Susie Wiles helped President Trump achieve the most successful first 11 months in office of any president in American history. President Trump has no greater or more dedicated adviser than Susie.”
But they can't escape the reality: Susie Wiles has verified many dubious facts about the Trump administration, including the fact that it operates with reckless impunity.
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