White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has given a series of strikingly candid interviews to Vanity Fair, offering an unvarnished look inside Donald Trump’s second administration. In comments made before and after the election, Wiles described Trump as having “an alcoholic’s personality” despite being teetotal, drawing a parallel with her late father, broadcaster Pat Summerall, who struggled with alcoholism.
Wiles said Trump believes “there’s nothing he can’t do, nothing, zero” as president. She acknowledged that Trump pursues retribution against political opponents “when there’s an opportunity” and claimed she had a “loose agreement” with him to limit score-settling to the first 90 days of his term. However, indictments have since been brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, well beyond that window.
Wiles also revealed she initially opposed Trump’s blanket pardon of 1,500 January 6 rioters, but relented after Trump argued that even violent offenders had served disproportionately long sentences. She praised the FBI’s work in identifying culprits, a stance at odds with Trump’s purge of agents involved in investigations against him.
On Elon Musk, Wiles called him “an odd, odd duck” and said she was “initially aghast” at his dismantling of USAID. She attributed Musk’s controversial social media posts to his drug use, stating: “I think that’s when he’s microdosing … He’s an avowed ketamine [user].”
Trump defended Wiles in a New York Post interview, saying he had not read the Vanity Fair piece but that “the facts were wrong”. Wiles herself dismissed the article as “a disingenuously framed hit piece” in a social media post.
