President Donald Trump has an “alcoholic personality” and has taken legal “vengeance” against his enemies since returning to office, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in a surprisingly candid series of Vanity Fair interviews published Tuesday.
Wiles said in March that there was a “general agreement” with Trump that the settling of scores would end before the end of the first 90 days.
About five months later, she initially denied that President Trump was “on a revenge trip” and claimed that his motive was to remove “people who have done bad things” from the government.
But, she acknowledged, “In some cases, it may look like retaliation. And sometimes there may be elements of that.”
And she said the government’s attempted prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the corporate fraud case against Trump and was considered one of his most accused political opponents, “may be the only retaliation.”
The case against Mr. James on charges related to mortgage fraud was dismissed in November after a judge ruled that Mr. Trump’s selection of prosecutors was invalid. The Justice Department has so far been unable to convince a subsequent grand jury to reindict her.
Wiles’ eyebrow-raising remarks were made during 11 interviews with author Chris Whipple during President Trump’s first year back in the White House.
Mr. Wiles enjoys unparalleled influence and power under the Trump administration, operating largely behind the scenes. But in her conversations with Whipple, she offered candid explanations and, at times, criticisms of many senior government officials.
Those officials include Trump himself.
Wiles, whose father, former New York Giants kicker Pat Summerall, was described as an alcoholic and absentee parent in the article, said her difficult upbringing made her “a bit of a big-time expert.”
Wiles told Whipple that President Trump doesn’t drink, but he has an “alcoholic personality” in that he “acts like there’s nothing he can’t do.” “Nothing, zero, nothing.”
She also spoke about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering behind some of President Trump’s biggest agendas, including his global “mutual” tariff policy.
The introduction of the tariffs in early April, which President Trump touted as America’s “day of liberation,” was the product of what Wiles described as a divided White House that could not agree on the impact of the policy.
“It’s about thinking too loudly,” Mr. Wiles said in an interview at the time, recalling that he urged advisers who questioned the tariff plan to join them, but “they never got there.”
Wiles said he believed the tariff compromise would ultimately be successful, Whipple reported. “But it hurt more than I expected,” she says.
Wiles fired back at the Vanity Fair report late Tuesday morning in the X-Post, calling it “a hit piece that disingenuously fabricated stories about me and the greatest president, White House staff, and cabinet member in history.”
“Important context is ignored and much of what I and others have said about the team and the president is left out of the story. After reading it, I believe this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic negative narrative about the president and our team,” she wrote.
She added that she was “honored” to work for Trump for nearly a decade, declaring, “None of this can stop our relentless pursuit of making America great again!”
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt added in a statement to CNBC that Wiles “helped President Trump achieve the most successful first 11 months in office of any president in American history.”
“President Trump has never had a greater and more loyal advisor than Susie. The entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and is completely united in her support,” Levitt said.
Whipple also reported that Wiles said Vice President J.D. Vance, a former critic of President Trump and leader of the MAGA movement, had “some kind of political” motive for changing his views.
He says he has been a “conspiracy theorist for 10 years.”
Asked about his comments later Tuesday, Vance said he only believes “conspiracy theories are true.” He cited concerns about requiring children to wear masks during the coronavirus pandemic and former President Joe Biden’s health during his time in office as examples.
“If anyone learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article, I hope it’s to cut down on interviews with mainstream media,” Vance added.
Wiles said Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and author of the government reform guidebook known as Project 2025, is an “extreme right-wing fanatic.”
Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi “completely blanked” on her initial handling of government records related to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Wiles said.
On the 2024 campaign trail, President Trump said he supported declassifying files from the federal investigation into Epstein, the well-connected money manager who died in prison in 2019 on sex trafficking charges. However, the Trump administration later announced that it had determined that further disclosure was not warranted, angering many MAGA supporters.
In February, Mr. Bondi gave a binder containing outdated information labeled “Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a group of conservative influencers, Mr. Wiles said, without realizing that they were “a very targeted group that had an interest in this issue.”
“At first she gave them a blank binder, and she said there was a witness list or a client list on her desk,” Wiles said, adding, “There is no client list and it definitely wasn’t on her desk.”
Regarding Elon Musk, tesla Mr. Wiles, who is also the head of SpaceX, which briefly ran President Trump’s controversial government-critic group known as DOGE, accused Mr. Wiles of being an “public ketamine user” and “a weird, weird duck who I think is a genius.”
She said she was “at first surprised” when DOGE moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk had claimed was rife with fraud.
“I think anyone who has looked at government and looked at USAID believes, as I do, that they are doing a very good job,” she said.
“Elon’s attitude is we have to get it done fast. If you’re an incrementalist, you’re not going to get a rocket to the moon,” Wiles said. “So with that kind of attitude, you’re breaking ceramics. But no rational person can think that the USAID process is a good one. No one.”
