Unusually open Trump's chief of staff breaks the silence

Susie Wiles doesn't really like to be in the spotlight, but now Donald Trump's chief of staff is making headlines with a newspaper article in which she speaks unusually openly about White House policy and its protagonists.

Susie Wiles has been involved in politics for decades: the 68-year-old has managed various Republican election campaigns and helped ensure that Donald Trump won a second term in office at the ballot box.

Wiles also knows a thing or two about public relations: She has lobbied for tobacco companies and mining companies, but does not like being in the spotlight herself. She is the first woman to become Chief of Staff in the White House - she is the first person Trump has nominated for a position.

The woman is held in high esteem by the US President. "Susie Trump, do you know Susie Trump?" the 79-year-old asked the audience at an event on December 10. "Also known as Susie Wiles: she's the great Chief of Staff." He had her to thank for his election victory in 2024.

And now Wiles drops a bombshell in "Vanity Fair": In a long article in the magazine, for which she has regularly given interviews to the journalist over the past year, the Republican comments on many of her colleagues, but also on her boss's policies. The US media describe her statements as candid, i.e. open, honest and undisguised. Why? Read for yourself.

Wiles says of herself that she is "a little expert on big personalities": She attests that Donald Trump has the "personality of an alcoholic". Why, when the man is a teetotaller? Her boss "works with the view that there's nothing he can't do. Nothing, zero, nothing."

Trump then told the New York Post:"I've said this about myself many times: it's a very poignant personality." He has a "poignant and addictive personality". And Susie Wiles remains "fantastic" for him.

Susie Wiles confirms that the US president appears in the documents about the deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. "We know he's in the file. And he's not in the file because he's doing something bad."

She explains: Trump "was on [Epstein's] plane. [...] He's on the passenger list. They were kind of young, single, whatever - I know it's an outdated word, but kind of young, single playboys together."

JD Vance "has been a believer in conspiracy theories for a decade," Wiles says of the vice president. He used to oppose Trump, as did US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but there is a difference between the two.

"Marco was not the kind of person who would violate his principles. He just wouldn't do it," she says of the Secretary of State. The change in Vance "came when he ran for the Senate. And I think his conversion was a little bit more of a political one."

Commenting on Wiles' statements, Vance says, "Sometimes I'm a believer in conspiracy theories, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true."

According to Wiles, Justice Minister Pam Bondi underestimated how much the release of the Epstein files was in demand by many: "I think she completely failed to realize that this was the target group that was interested in it".

Initially, the Minister of Justice did not deliver - later she promised more than was possible: "First she gave them folders full of nothing. And then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her desk. There is no client list, and it certainly wasn't on her desk."

Russell Vought is one of the architects of Project 2025 and ruler of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees federal programs and reports directly to the president. For Wiles, Vought is an "absolute right-wing fanatic".

"He's an avowed ketamine user. And he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the [office] during the day. He's a weird, weirdo, as geniuses go, I guess. You know, it's not helpful, but he's his own personality."

Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple addresses Wiles on a Musk re-post about public employees participating in murder under Hitler and Stalin. "I think that was when he was microdosing [ketamine]," she says.

Wiles was "initially horrified" by the end of the development agency USAID: "[Musk] decided it was better to close the agency, fire everyone, shut them out and then rebuild. I wouldn't do it that way."

Trump fibbed when he said that former President Bill Clinton had visited Jeffrey Epstein's island. "There is no evidence of that," says Wiles. Nothing else incriminating about the Democrat can be found either. "The president was wrong about that."

"There was a lot of disagreement about whether they were a good idea," Wiles recalls of the introduction of the tariffs in April, which Trump pushed for: "We said to Donald Trump: 'Hey, let's not talk about tariffs today. Let's wait until the team agrees and then we'll do it'." The effect was apparently less positive than expected: "It was more painful than expected," said Wiles.

Wiles confirms that the White House is seeking a regime change in Venezuela: Trump "wants to keep blowing up boats until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gives up," his chief of staff knows.

Angry reactions

The reactions to the Vanity Fair piece are furious. "We should give fewer interviews to the mainstream media," says JD Vance. Trump says he doesn't even read the magazine - and Susie Wiles herself speaks out on X after a long social media absence.

For her, the story was a "disingenuously worded inflammatory article" that also went against "the best president in history". Her statements had been taken out of context. Trump had achieved more in eleven months than others in eight years.

Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, complains that the author of the article is biased: He had omitted important statements. "Probably because it doesn't support the false narrative of chaos and confusion." Wiles is - in a positive sense - "unbelievable".

It is unclear how the statements came about. CNN speculates that she did not know who she was talking to - or that she thought she would not be quoted.