By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (Reuters) – White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles revealed internal tensions in the Trump administration over issues from immigration enforcement to government downsizing in comments published by Vanity Fair on Tuesday that paint an unflattering picture of the role played by some of President Donald Trump’s close aides.
In a series of 11 interviews with author Chris Whipple conducted over Trump’s first year back in office, Wiles, the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, described the president as having “an alcoholic’s personality” and an eye for vengeance against perceived enemies.
She also said Vice President JD Vance has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade” and described his shift from Trump critic to supporter as “sort of political,” motivated by his Senate campaign rather than principle.
She took aim at the way billionaire Elon Musk dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and how Attorney General Pam Bondi initially responded to the planned release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
According to the interviews, Wiles also said she warned Trump against pardoning the most violent participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and pressed him to delay his decision on sweeping trade tariffs, but was unable to change his mind in either case.
She said the administration should have applied greater scrutiny to the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally to avoid errors.
“He has an alcoholic’s personality,” Wiles said of Trump, explaining that her upbringing with an alcoholic father prepared her for managing “big personalities.” Trump does not drink, she noted, but operates with “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”
In a post on X, Wiles called the Vanity Fair story “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history,” saying it omitted important context and selectively quoted her to create a negative narrative.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also responded on X, saying Wiles is a loyal and trusted adviser to Trump, and the administration fully supports her.
Vance defended Wiles, telling reporters in Pennsylvania that he admires her consistency and authenticity both in and out of the president’s presence.
“I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States and that makes her the best White House chief of staff the president could ask for,” he said.
In the interviews, Wiles said Bondi “completely whiffed” her early handling of the Epstein files, an issue that upset Trump’s right-wing base.
Bondi had initially suggested she was going to release incriminating information about Epstein’s alleged network of acquaintances but then backed off.
Bondi said on X that Wiles works tirelessly to advance Trump’s agenda with loyalty, adding that any effort to sow division within the administration would not succeed and that the team remains united.
Wiles said in the interviews that she had read the Epstein documents and acknowledged that Trump’s name is in them but that “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.”
Trump’s push to have New York Attorney General Letitia James prosecuted on allegations of mortgage fraud was perhaps motivated by feelings of vengeance against the Democratic official, Wiles said.
The case against James, a Trump critic, “was maybe the one retribution,” Wiles said. She added that while Trump may not wake up thinking about retribution, “when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.”
Wiles said she was shocked by Musk’s dismantling of USAID, including its global aid programs, calling the approach “not the way I would do it.” She said she confronted Musk over locking staff out of their offices, saying no reasonable person could view his handling of the aid agency as effective.
Musk ran Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which was tasked with slashing the federal government’s budget and workforce at the start of Trump’s second term. He did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Wiles acknowledged concerns with how some deportations of immigrants have been handled, saying the process needs closer review and should include a “double-check” when there’s uncertainty.
She said Trump’s announcement of tariffs on U.S. trade partners earlier this year exposed deep divisions within his team, as advisers urged him to wait for consensus. She added that the tariff decision “has been more painful than I expected.”
Wiles raised no objections to Trump’s actions against Venezuela, including attacks on boats suspected of carrying drugs but suggested his true aim was regime change against President Nicolas Maduro. She noted that any Trump-ordered land strikes in Venezuela or the region would require congressional approval.
Wiles, a political strategist from Florida who managed Trump’s comeback 2024 campaign and has been seen as running a more organized White House than in his first term, said she does not view her role as constraining the president, but as facilitating his decisions. She said being overruled was never a source of grievance, noting that she ultimately supported the final outcomes.
“There have been a couple of times where I’ve been outvoted,” she said. “And if there’s a tie, he wins.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alistair Bell)
Comments