Susie Wiles posted on X for the first time in more than a year in order to push back against Vanity Fair's profile of her - an indication the article is sparking tumult inside the White House
16:35, 16 Dec 2025Updated 16:36, 16 Dec 2025
Donald Trump's White House was thrown into chaos over an explosive interview given by his chief of staff - which she claims is a "hit piece" despite giving 11 interviews for it. In the piece, Susie Wiles, Trump's gatekeeper, said the President's team "knows he's in the Epstein Files", and claims he has an "alcoholic's personality". Ms Wiles posted on X for the first time in more than a year in order to push back against Vanity Fair's profile of her - an indication the article is sparking tumult inside the White House.
A source close to the administration told the Mirror it was unlikely Wiles would be ousted over the article - but that it would likely make the President "scream".
"He'll probably scream and throw things," the source said. "But he doesn't have many others he can call on right now."
Trump is already on the back foot after badly misjudged comments about the murdered film director Rob Reiner, whom Trump claimed had been killed as a result of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Reiner, director of a string of beloved blockbusters including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally, was killed in his home along with his wife over the weekend. Their son has been arrested and charged with their murder.
In interviews for the piece, Wiles described Trump, who is teetotal, as having an "alcoholic's personality", and believing "there's nothing he can't do. Nothing, zero, nothing."
She made claims about Elon Musk's drug use - claiming he was an "avowed" ketamine user, and joking that he had tweeted something while "microdosing".
Musk has admitted to taking ketamine in the past, but has denied being a regular user. Speaking to The New York Times, Ms Wiles denied she'd made the remarks to the reporter from Vanity Fair - only for Vanity Fair to play tape of the exchange to the newspaper to prove that she had, in fact, made the comments.
She sharply criticised Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Epstein case and the public's expectations in the interview with Vanity Fair magazine that was released Tuesday.
Wiles specifically mentioned earlier in the year when Bondi distributed binders to a group of political commentators that included no new information about Epstein. Wiles also raised the issue of Bondi suggesting that a list of Epstein's clients was on her desk and awaiting her review.
"I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this," Wiles said of Bondi.
"First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk."
She said she had read the Epstein documents, and acknowledged Trump's name is in them. "We know he's in the file," she said. "And he's not in the file doing anything awful."
In one interview, Wiles says she recognises characteristics in Trump that she saw in her father, sports broadcaster Pat Summerall, who was an alcoholic.
"High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I'm a little bit of an expert in big personalities," Wiles said, adding that Trump has "a view that there's nothing he can't do. Nothing, zero, nothing."
She claims to have tried to get Trump to end his "score settling" against his political enemies - acknowledging that punishing his opponents was his focus. "When there's an opportunity, he will go for it," he said of Trump's bids for retribution.
Elsewhere she describes Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr as "quirky bobby", Vice President JD Vance as a "conspiracy theorist" and Musk as an "odd, odd duck" whose actions were not always "rational", and who slept in a sleeping bag in a government office building during the day.
And she blasted Musk's approach to axing the USAID agency, recalling she had told him: "You can't just lock people out of their offices"
She added: "No rational person could think the U.S.A.I.D. process was a good one. Nobody."
Wiles has called the profile a "hit piece" but has not denied any specifics.
She called the two-part profile "a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history." But she did not deny any specific quotations attributed to her.
"Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out," Wiles asserted without details.
Similarly, Karoline Leavitt leapt to her defence, but did not deny any of the quotes attributed to her.
"President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie," Leavitt posted Tuesday on social media. "The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership."
Wiles managed Trump's 2024 campaign and then he tapped her as the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. She was reportedly keen to act as a gatekeeper against the "clown car" trying to gain access to the President. Before she took the role, a source told the Mirror: "Good luck with that".