Susie Wiles generally helps quietly shape headlines. She is rarely the focus of them.
That changed in dramatic fashion Tuesday after Vanity Fair published a deeply reported profile of the 68-year-old White House chief of staff, whose decades-long career in politics has been defined by a measured, steady-the-ship tone, never one that could be construed as undermining her boss.
In the two-part Vanity Fair piece — which included 11 interviews over nearly a year, with the White House’s cooperation — Wiles comes off as far more candid than her public persona. She not only speaks openly about both President Donald Trump and those who make up the core of his administration, but appears to acknowledge that at times she has been at odds with some of the policies that have been central to Trump’s second term. While not unusual for a chief of staff to disagree with the president they serve, those concerns generally remain part of private conversations.
Wiles revealed there had been “huge disagreements” over implementing tariffs, acknowledged that the administration must “look harder” at its process for mass deportation and said she had to “get on board” with Trump’s decision to give blanket pardons to Jan. 6 defendants. She said she initially believed only those who did not commit violent acts should be pardoned.
The profile prompted an all-hands-on-deck pushback from the White House and Trump’s political orbit. The central talking point became that the profile lacked context, and supporters blasted the outlet for being unfair rather than offering any direct refutation of the authenticity of quotes or what was reported.
Wiles herself also offered rare public condemnation.
“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 posted on social media. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.”
In an interview with the New York Post, Trump defended his top staffer.
“I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided,” he said.
Trump added “she’s fantastic” when asked if he continues to have full confidence in Wiles.
Wiles did not respond to a request seeking comment.
The broader questions raised by the profile will now likely be twofold: Will Wiles be able to continue to effectively do her job for a president known to be averse to bad headlines, and why did the administration agree to participate?
“I do not know what they were thinking,” said a former administration official who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “You can’t trust Vanity Fair. I have full faith in the people around President Trump, but I’m not sure what they were thinking here.”
Dozens of prominent Republicans, including 10 current Trump Cabinet secretaries, FBI Director Kash Patel and Donald Trump Jr., took up Wiles’ defense emphasizing not only her influence in the White House but her well-regarded reputation as a tactician and political strategist.
“In the context of my forty-year career on Wall Street, which included meeting with hundreds of global leaders, Susie Wiles is the single most effective operator whom I have ever met,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on social media. “No one is more insightful, effective, and loyal. She never loses sight of the big picture while managing the daily agenda.”
Wiles led Trump’s Florida campaign in 2016 and 2020, was his national campaign co-chair in 2024, and has served as his only chief of staff during his second administration. While that long-running relationship gives her significant sway and trust with the president, Trump usually doesn’t tolerate bad headlines and negative attention for long. It makes the Vanity Fair article one of the first major tests of his loyalty to his longtime confidante.
“I can’t imagine what drove her to go full monty with Whipple,” said a longtime friend of Wiles whose relationship with her extends back to her time as a Florida operative, speaking of Chris Whipple, the profile’s author. “He’s a serious journalist who won’t embellish her words.”
The person said that they think it’s “50-50” that Wiles is able to keep her job if reaction to the profile becomes too intense.
“Nothing in the article makes him shine,” this person said.
Wiles also acknowledged that there is an element of “score settling” embedded in Trump’s push to go after his political foes.
“I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution,” she said. “But when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.”
She softened those comments in a Sunday interview with The New York Times, which was given an advanced copy of the Vanity Fair profile.
“It’s not that he thinks they wronged him, although they did,” she said. “He thinks that they wronged, and they should not be able to do to somebody else what they did to him and the way that you could cure that, at least potentially, is to expose what was done.”
Wiles first discussed retribution with Vanity Fair in a March interview. Since that time, the Trump administration has investigated several of its perceived political opponents, including opening mortgage fraud investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James, who in the past sued Trump over his past business dealings; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial; and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, whom Trump has tried to fire in the past.
Only the James investigation prompted an indictment that was later dismissed. The Justice Department then failed successive attempts to secure an indictment against James after the original dismissal, although prosecutors could try to indict her again.
In addition, last month, a federal judge tossed the Trump administration’s case against former FBI Director James Comey, whom it accused of making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The Justice Department has not yet said whether it will seek to re-indict Comey following another adversarial ruling related to the case.
Though Wiles softened her original March comments about retribution, her acknowledgement that there were “score settling” considerations could complicate the Justice Department’s efforts to appeal both the James and Comey rulings. In each case, Trump has publicly tried to downplay the investigations that had anything to do with political “revenge.”
“It’s about justice, not revenge,” Trump said when Comey was first indicted in September.
In her series of interviews with Vanity Fair, Wiles also referred to Vice President JD Vance as a “conspiracy theorist,” which he brushed off on Tuesday during a speech about the economy in Alburtis, Pennsylvania.
“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance said, drawing cheers from the crowd. “And by the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time.”
Vance then offered a full-throated defense of Wiles.
“And Susie Wiles — we have our disagreements, we agree on much more than we disagree,” Vance said. “But 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 that I think the president could ask for.”
“The last thing I’ll say,” he added. “If any of us have learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article, I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”
