10 Wildest Revelations From Vanity Fair’s Earth-Shattering Susie Wiles Story

President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, rarely speaks out, but a year’s worth of on-the-record conversations dropped Tuesday in a blockbuster Vanity Fair profile that has rocked the White House.

From tariffs, to war powers, to Epstein, to revenge prosecutions and Trump’s psychology, Wiles’s candor amounts to one of the most unvarnished insider accounts of Trump’s second term yet.

Hours after publication, Wiles railed that the article was “a disingenuously framed hit piece” in which “significant context was disregarded,” with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt falling behind her.

After denying comments quoted in the piece about Elon Musk and his alleged drug use, however, to The New York Times, the article’s author Chris Whipple played back the audio receipts.

All in all, it’s a whirlwind two–parter, each facet of which is about to become hotly contested.

Here are the 10 wildest revelations:

1. Trump’s tariff rollout was “thinking out loud” amid “huge disagreement”

Wiles admitted the administration’s tariff blitz rollout was not the product of settled strategy, but of internal division and presidential gut instinct.

“So much thinking out loud is what I would call it,” she told Vanity Fair of the announcements, confirming: “There was a huge disagreement over whether [tariffs were] a good idea.”

Rather than slow Trump down, Wiles shared how she instructed aides to fall in line: “I said, ‘This is where we’re going to end up. So figure out how you can work into what he’s already thinking.’ Well, they couldn’t get there.”

2. Wiles has nicknames – and labels – for several Trump Cabinet members

The chief of staff is unusually blunt about her colleagues, even though she defended them as “world-class.”

Vice President JD Vance’s conversion to Trumpism, she said, was “sort of political,” adding that the vice president has been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade,” BUT STILL admitted she’d be the “first” to support a Vance 2028 presidential run.

OBM director Russell Vought was called “a right-wing absolute zealot.” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got an endearing “my Bobby” but also “quirky Bobby.” Elon Musk, according to Wiles, is “a complete solo actor” and “an odd, odd duck.”

Her West Wing, she says approvingly, is filled with “junkyard dogs.”

3. Wiles diagnoses Trump with “an alcoholic’s personality”

Drawing on her experience growing up with an alcoholic father, Wiles offered a striking psychological assessment of the president. Trump, she said, has “an alcoholic’s personality.”

She explained that she does not mean substance abuse, but a temperament defined by exaggerated confidence and risk-taking. Trump, she said, “operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.”

4. Insiders fear Epstein fallout could cost Trump the podcast crowd

Wiles acknowledged that the Jeffrey Epstein case files fight is not hurting Trump with his base, per se, but with newer, swing-adjacent voters that helped push him toward the 2024 victory.

“The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition,” she said. “It’s the Joe Rogan listeners. It’s the people that are sort of new to our world. It’s not the MAGA base.”

A senior White House official told Vanity Fair this bloc overlaps with voters unsettled by Gaza and US-Israel policy, and could represent “as much as 5 percent of the vote.”

5. Wiles says Trump was ‘wrong’ about Bill Clinton and Epstein

Wiles flatly contradicted one of Trump’s hints that Bill Clinton repeatedly visited Epstein’s private island.

“There is no evidence” that Clinton went to the island, she said, adding bluntly: “The president was wrong about that.”

At the same time, Wiles confirmed Trump does appear in Epstein material – though she insists it is not incriminating.

“[Trump] is in the file. And we know he’s in the file. And he’s not in the file doing anything awful,” she is quoted as saying.

6. Wiles shrugs off retribution — and admits she can’t really defend it

Pressed on Trump’s campaign of prosecutions against perceived enemies, Wiles denied he was on a “retribution tour” but conceded the optics are bad and didn’t try very hard to argue otherwise.

“I mean, people could think it does look vindictive. I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t think that,” she said of the James Comey indictment.

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

Asked about targeting New York Attorney General Letitia James, Wiles admitted: “Well, that might be the one retribution.”

7. Wiles blames women for Trump’s attacks on women

When asked about Trump’s increasingly frequent verbal attacks on female journalists, Wiles tried to reframe the issue.

“He’s a counterpuncher,” she said. “And increasingly, in our society, the punchers are women.”

The comment offers rare insight into how Trump’s inner circle justifies behavior that has repeatedly sparked backlash.

8. Wiles hints blowing up boats is about more than drugs — it’s about Maduro

Wiles goes beyond official messaging by describing Trump’s lethal boat strikes as coercive foreign policy in a framing that appears to contradict the administration’s insistence that the strikes are purely about drug interdiction.

“He wants to keep on blowing boats up until [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro cries uncle,” she said. “And people way smarter than me on that say that he will.”

9. Wiles argues Trump doesn’t need Congress for Venezuelan strikes — yet

Wiles openly characterized the operation as war but dismissed the need for congressional approval.

“This is a war on drugs. [It’s] unlike another one that we’ve seen. But that’s what this is,” she said.

Asked about Congress, her response was terse: “Don’t need it yet.”

She insisted intelligence is sound — “We’re very sure we know who we’re blowing up” — while acknowledging that strikes on land would cross a legal line and require Congress.

“If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress. But Marco [Rubio] and JD, to some extent, are up on the Hill every day, briefing,” Wiles said.

10. Trump isn’t running for a third term — but he loves the outrage

Wiles insisted Trump knows he cannot run again and has no intention of doing so, despite revealing that he has openly lamented his “wish” that he could serve a further term.

When asked whether he would, she gave a flat “no” before explaining the real reason the talk persists.

“But he sure is having fun with it,” she added. Asked if that’s why he keeps floating the idea, she replied: “Yeah, 100 percent.”

“Would you say categorically no, and that the 22nd Amendment rules out [a third term]?” Whipple pressed.

“I do,” Wiles said. “Yeah. And I’m not a lawyer, but based on my reading of it, it’s pretty unequivocal.”

She added that Trump shared the view and had told her that “a couple times.”

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