Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Issues Statement After Stunning D.C. with Friendly Fire Interview

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles forcefully pushed back Tuesday against a Vanity Fair article that drew from a series of interviews she gave and portrayed President Donald J. Trump and key members of his administration in a sharply negative light.

The piece, authored by Vanity Fair’s Chris Wipple, was published in two parts and based on 11 interviews conducted with Wiles over roughly the past year. Wiles, who made history as the first female White House chief of staff, said the article grossly distorted her remarks and stripped them of critical context.

Wipple led the article with some of its most inflammatory claims, writing that Wiles told him President Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality.” Later in the piece, however, Wiles clarified that she was referring to what she described as the president’s “exaggerated” or “big personality,” adding that Trump operates with “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

Wiles noted she was familiar with that type of personality because her father, legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, had one as well. Summerall did struggle with alcoholism, though President Trump is widely known to be a teetotaler.

The article also attributed critical remarks to Wiles about other senior administration officials. According to Wipple, Wiles said Vice President J.D. Vance’s shift toward MAGA politics had been “sort of political,” and claimed he had been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade.”

Wipple further wrote that Wiles described Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and architect of Project 2025, as “a right-wing absolute zealot.”

The article also alleged Wiles commented on Elon Musk’s social media behavior, writing: “When I asked her what she thought of Musk reposting a tweet about public sector workers killing millions under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, she replied: ‘I think that’s when he’s microdosing.’ (She says she doesn’t have first-hand knowledge).”

Wipple devoted substantial space to portraying what he characterized as President Trump’s “campaign of revenge and retribution” against political opponents such as former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September turbocharged Trump’s campaign of revenge and retribution. Critics have compared this moment to a Reichstag fire, a modern version of Hitler’s exploitation of the torching of Berlin’s parliament,” Wipple wrote.

To his credit, Wipple did include Wiles’ direct response to that claim.

“I don’t think he’s on a retribution tour. A governing principle for him is, ‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to somebody else.’ And so people that have done bad things need to get out of the government. In some cases, it may look like retribution. And there may be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me,” Wiles said.

Following publication, Wiles publicly condemned the article, calling it a deliberate attempt to undermine President Trump and his administration.

“The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history,” Wiles wrote in a social media post Tuesday.

“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team,” she continued.

Wiles emphasized the administration’s record under President Trump’s second term.

“The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade,” she wrote.

She concluded, “None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also defended Wiles, posting on X: “Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has 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 loyal advisor than Susie.”

Leavitt added, “The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”

Vice President Vance weighed in as well, offering a pointed response to the criticism.

“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance said.

“A conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it,” he added.

“I’ve never seen [Wiles] be disloyal to the president of the United States,” Vance said. “And that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for.”