Trump’s top aide exposes White House chaos—and regrets it

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles left few people unscathed in a sweeping Vanity Fair profile published Thursday—an unusually candid and, at times, blistering account from one of the most powerful figures in the Trump administration.

In the tell-all interview, Wiles describes Vice President JD Vance as “a conspiracy theorist for a decade.” 

The remark lands amid lingering speculation over Vance’s political transformation—from once likening President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler to becoming one of his fiercest defenders. Wiles suggests that the shift was less ideological than opportunistic, calling it “sort of political.”

Speaking in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Vance defended Wiles as unwaveringly loyal, saying he has “never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States.” 

He also emphasized that Wiles has never contradicted Trump behind the scenes or worked against him in private.

Regarding his own reputation as a conspiracy theorist, Vance offered a wry caveat.

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

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In her interview, Wiles is equally unsparing toward Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, calling him “a right-wing absolute zealot.” 

Vanity Fair notes that Vought was the “architect of the notorious Project 2025,” the Heritage Foundation-backed blueprint to radically reshape the federal government.

Wiles also weighed in on Elon Musk’s short-lived effort to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, an initiative that ended with Musk conceding he could cut only about $150 billion by the end of 2026. And when asked about Musk’s increasingly erratic public behavior, Wiles did not mince words.

“I think that’s when he’s microdosing,” she says, referring to a since-deleted post in which Musk argued that leaders like Joseph Stalin and Hitler “didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.” 

Wiles also claims that Musk is an “avowed ketamine [user],” echoing The New York Times’ claim that Musk heavily used drugs while working in the White House, including sometimes mixing ketamine with other drugs. The Times also notes that Musk is an avid user of ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, and Adderall. 

Wiles, however, says she never had firsthand knowledge of Musk’s drug use.

Trump himself was not spared, with Wiles describing him as having an “alcoholic’s personality,” drawing a comparison to her father, legendary NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, who struggled with alcoholism before getting sober.

“Some clinical psychologist that knows one million times more than I do will dispute what I’m going to say,” Wiles says. “But high-functioning alcoholics, or alcoholics in general, have exaggerated personalities when they drink. And so I’m a little bit of an expert in big personalities.”

“[Trump] operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do,” she added. “Nothing. Zero. Nothing.”

Trump does not drink, citing his older brother Fred’s alcoholism and early death. Instead, he is known for his Diet Coke habit, which led to the installation of a button on the Resolute Desk that summons the beverage at the press of a button.

Wiles, the famously media-shy aide whom Trump calls the “Ice Maiden,” made the comments to Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple. Wiles is the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff and has been one of Trump’s most loyal and influential advisers, previously managing his 2024 campaign.

Despite maintaining a lower public profile than many Trump aides, Wiles is widely viewed as a central force inside the administration.

“So many decisions of great consequence are being made on the whim of the president,” a former Republican tells Whipple. “And as far as I can tell, the only force that can direct or channel that whim is Susie. In most White Houses, the chief of staff is first among a bunch of equals. She may be first with no equals.”

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Wiles says that, while she has difficult conversations with Trump every day, they are rarely about major constitutional or moral questions.

“They’re over little things, not big,” she says. “I hear stories from my predecessors about these seminal moments where you have to go in and tell the president what he wants to do is unconstitutional or will cost lives. I don’t have that.”

Wiles added that she chooses carefully when to push back.

“So no, I’m not an enabler. I’m also not a bitch,” she says. “I try to be thoughtful about what I even engage in. I guess time will tell whether I’ve been effective.”

Perhaps most striking are Wiles’ comments on Trump’s appetite for revenge, calling efforts to prosecute one of his enemies “retribution” and saying that the two reached a “loose agreement” to move past “score settling” within the first 90 days of his second term.

“Yes, I do,” Wiles told Whipple in March when asked whether she urges Trump not to run a “retribution tour.” 

But when Whipple raised the issue again in August, he says Wiles pushed back on the idea that Trump was seeking vengeance.

“A governing principle for him is, ‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to somebody else,’” Wiles says. “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.”

Pressed on Trump’s allegations that New York Attorney General Letitia James committed mortgage fraud, Wiles concedes, “That might be the one retribution.” 

Attempts by the Justice Department to prosecute James were dismissed in November, as were charges brought against former FBI Director James Comey.

“I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution,” Wiles says of Trump. “But when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.”

After publication, Wiles moved quickly to reclaim the narrative on Thursday morning. In a statement, she denounces the Vanity Fair profile as “a disingenuously framed hit piece,” arguing that key context had been omitted to portray the White House as chaotic and negative.

Insisting that the administration had “already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years,” she credits what she calls Trump’s “unmatched leadership and vision,” and says that nothing in the story would slow the push to “Making America Great Again.”

But the tension between the statement and the interview lingers. Wiles may reject the portrait, but it was drawn largely in her own words. And it is rare—if not unprecedented—for a sitting White House chief of staff to speak this candidly about the president, his impulses, and the people around him.

Whether that candor ultimately strengthens Trump’s operation or exposes it may matter less than the fact that it’s now officially on the record.

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