The Vanity Fair writer who conducted a fiery interview with Susie Wiles has hit back at the White House’s accusation that he wrote a “hit piece” on the Trump administration.
While writing the unprecedented interview, journalist Chris Whipple met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles eleven times over eleven months.
Wiles is one of the most important people in Trump’s orbit and is widely credited with playing a key part in masterminding his return to the White House.
In the piece, Wiles said that Trump had an “alcoholic’s personality,” claimed that JD Vance was a conspiracy theorist, and suggested that Elon Musk was an “avowed” ketamine user.
Although Wiles has since claimed that the context of her claims had been “disregarded,” Whipple says that “Everything is on tape.”
“This was one of those cases as a reporter in your career when lightning strikes, and it was astonishing to me the extent to which she was unguarded and freewheeling on the record all the time,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Everything in the article was on the record. I recorded every interview.”
Whipple compared the scandal to Watergate and pointed out that the White House has been unable to dispute any of his claims so far.
“There isn’t a single fact or a single assertion that they’ve challenged in the piece,” he said. “It really reminds me of the Watergate days when Ben Bradlee talked about non-denial denial. So this is the ultimate non-denial denial.”
Wiles is known for making few public appearances, with Whipple dubbing her the “Greta Garbo” of the second Trump administration.
However, her interview with Vanity Fair gave an unvarnished look into the behind-the-scenes chaos at the White House.
She alleged that she hit out at Elon Musk for sharing a post that blamed public sector workers for killing millions under Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Wiles claimed Musk had shared the post while “microdosing.”
Wiles added that the tech CEO’s cuts to USAID left her “aghast,” since she believed it did “very good work.”
The mastermind behind Ron DeSantis’ successful 2018 gubernatorial run also claimed that there was “nothing, zero, nothing” that Trump truly believed he could not achieve. She said that was because his personality is exaggerated in the same way a person’s behavior is amplified when drinking alcohol, although Trump does not drink.
In a post on X, Wiles branded the article as a “disingenuously framed hit piece.”
“Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” Wiles wrote. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.”
In a stunning display, Trump rushed to Wiles’ defense as her claims about his administration ignited a firestorm on social media.
“I didn’t read it, but I don’t read Vanity Fair — but she’s done a fantastic job,” the president told The New York Post. “I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided.”
He added that he believed Wiles was “fantastic” and reiterated that he does not drink alcohol.
“So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic,” he said. “I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality.”
Vance also defended Wiles while speaking to reporters, despite her branding him as a conspiracy theorist.
He claimed that the pair have “joked in private and in public about that for a long time” and claimed that he has not read the article.
