The Susie Wiles Backlash Reveals Trump’s Plan to Delegitimize the Press

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

The reaction to Vanity Fair’s profile of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles followed a familiar pattern: coordinated defenses, accusations of bias, and attacks on the reporter. It then evolved into something more consequential. Republican officials and conservative media figures began articulating a case for disengaging from independent journalism altogether.

The article, based on 11 on-the-record and recorded interviews with Wiles, prompted a sharp escalation. Senator Mike Lee accused accused Vanity Fair of defaming Wiles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the reporting as ideological warfare, writing, “This is what the Left does. Trash & smear our best & most effective people.” Vice President JD Vance went further, suggesting the lesson was that the administration should stop giving interviews to mainstream or legacy media outlets.

The sequence is instructive. Lee framed reporting as harm. Hegseth framed journalism as a political attack. Vance framed withdrawal from the press as the appropriate response.
The danger lies in the logic being applied. This is a deliberate argument that independent scrutiny is unnecessary and counterproductive.

Vance made the point explicit, saying “I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets,” he said. That was not a complaint. It was a prescription.

Conservative media figures quickly reinforced the message. Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway complained she was “genuinely sick to death of people on the right who seek the approval of left-wing media,” adding, “Or even play with them for a minute. I can’t take it. It’s the saddest fetish.” Engagement with independent journalism was framed not as a tactical risk, but as moral weakness and disloyalty.

The Trump administration is already operating accordingly. The White House has expanded access to openly supportive figures who ask friendly questions and reliably reinforce its narrative, including podcasters and media personalities like Tim Pool and Brian Glenn. These figures serve as validators rather than interrogators. Difficult questions go unasked. Inconsistencies go unexamined.

Press access management itself is not new. The Biden administration also limited interviews and favored outlets perceived as less adversarial, particularly as concerns about the president’s age and capacity intensified. That approach involved controlling the terms of engagement while maintaining relationships with traditional media.

What Republican officials are now advocating goes further. Independent journalism is treated as fundamentally illegitimate rather than occasionally inconvenient. The preferred alternative is disengagement rather than management.

In that context, Vance’s remarks amount to a blueprint. Friendly voices already enjoy privileged access. Independent journalists are portrayed as adversaries. Eliminating engagement with traditional media becomes the logical next step.

Trump himself complicates this trajectory. Despite the rhetoric from his allies, he remains drawn to legacy media—sitting for Vanity Fair profiles, courting Time Magazine covers, obsessing over The New York Times. His hunger for mainstream validation creates space that the logic of his own administration works to eliminate.

That space may not survive a successor. Someone like Vance, who articulates the withdrawal strategy without Trump’s contradictory appetites, could execute it fully. What remains incomplete under Trump could become comprehensive under the next Republican president.

Another shift in language reinforces this trajectory. Lee did not simply accuse Vanity Fair of bias. He used the language of wrongdoing, calling a thoroughly sourced profile “defamation” without identifying a single factual error. That framing collapses the distinction between reporting and malice. Journalism is recast as injury rather than inquiry.

This language serves a purpose. When reporting is defined as ideological warfare or personal harm, avoiding reporters becomes prudent rather than evasive. Accountability is reframed as exposure to danger.

This is how press freedom erodes in practice. Independent journalists are not silenced directly. They are bypassed. Loyal amplifiers are elevated because they are easier to manage and less likely to challenge power.

The resulting media ecosystem appears active while remaining hollow. Press briefings continue. Interviews occur. Access flows to voices that affirm rather than question, and the appearance of transparency replaces meaningful scrutiny.

The Vanity Fair profile highlighted an administration sensitive to internal candor. The response highlighted a broader posture toward journalism itself. Independent reporting is treated as illegitimate unless it serves power.

A government does not need to silence the press to neutralize it. It only needs to decide which journalists count.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.