Geoff Bennett:
It was the story that consumed Washington this week, the “Vanity Fair” profile by journalist Chris Whipple built on 11 on-the-record interviews with President Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, offering a rare and revealing look inside Mr. Trump’s second term.
Through Whipple’s reporting, Wiles delivers unusually blunt assessments of senior Trump officials, criticizing Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, describing Vice President J.D. Vance as a conspiracy theorist, and offering a striking characterization of her boss, the president.
Chris Whipple joins us now.
Thanks for being here.
Chris Whipple, “Vanity Fair”: Good to be with you.
Geoff Bennett:
So, as I said, your reporting is built on 11 on-the-record interviews with Susie Wiles over the course of a year. How did you build that level of trust and access?
Chris Whipple:
Yes, really stunning, because, as you know, senior White House officials hardly ever speak to you on the record. I wrote a book about Joe Biden, so I know something about that.
But from the get-go, in January, almost a year ago, she was remarkably unguarded and open and on the record, except when we agreed mutually otherwise, and those were very few and far between. And, again, I was just — I found it stunning that I was able to talk to her for the next — almost the whole year.
And we talked through every crisis, from the blanket pardon of the insurrectionists on January 6 to the bombardment of boats in the Caribbean in recent days. So it’s not only a profile of Susie Wiles, but a remarkable inside look at Trump 2.0.
Geoff Bennett:
As many people know by now, she’s quoted as saying that Trump has an alcoholic’s personality, called the vice president, as we said, a conspiracy theorist, referred to the OMB director, Russell Vought, as a right-wing absolute zealot, said that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s initial handling of the Epstein files, that Bondi, in her words, completely whiffed.
As you say, she was unguarded and candid in her assessments. She’s describing senior Trump officials the way that many Trump critics describe them. The question is, why?
Chris Whipple:
Yes, and it’s a great question.
And I think that really a couple of points I would make here. Number one, I take her at her word that she felt that Trump had been maligned and unfairly treated, characterized during his first term. She was bound and determined to see that change in any way she could if she could find a fair hearing. And I think she thought she would get it from me.
Number two, I think there’s something else going on here. I think that, when you work in a bubble like the Trump White House and you’re surrounded all day by like-minded acolytes reading more or less from the same playbook, I think at a certain point, in this insular world, you forget that some of the things you say might sound crazy outside that perimeter, I mean, in a — on a normal planet.
And I just think that this is the way they talk among themselves often. J.D. Vance has confirmed that he’s a conspiracy theorist. Donald Trump has confirmed that he has an alcoholic’s personality, so there you go.
Geoff Bennett:
You also asked her about the president’s health, his erratic disposition, his falling asleep in meetings, his verbal abuse of women reporters. What did she say about that?
Chris Whipple:
Well, again, absolutely extraordinary.
On the subject of the president’s health, she insists, she’s adamant that he’s OK, he’s fine. She said: “My health is good. His health is great.”
I said, what about falling asleep in these Cabinet meetings? She said: “No, he’s just closing his eyes.”
And then I pressed her on the president’s increasing — all these episodes of verbally abusing women. And she said — and I specifically asked her about what he said to the Bloomberg reporter when he said, “Quiet, piggy.”
And her response to that was: “He’s a counterpuncher. And, increasingly these days, women are doing the punching.”
Geoff Bennett:
After the peace ran, Wiles referred to it as a hit piece. What do you make of that? Was she speaking to you believing that she was off the record when she was really on the record?
Chris Whipple:
Never. Never. She understood full well from the get-go that we were on the record. And, in fact, she commented on a number of times that we were on the record and confirmed it.
So, what this is, is a realization on their part that she was speaking out of school and in trouble for what she had said. They had to clean it up. And what’s remarkable is that they have failed to — the White House has failed to challenge a single assertion in the piece or a quotation. And what that tells you is that the story is rock-solid.
Geoff Bennett:
She also said, according to your reporting, that she hasn’t always agreed with the president’s policy decisions, that she was initially aghast at the shuttering of USAID. She questioned the blanket pardons of all the January 6 defendants, as you mentioned earlier, disagreed on the administration’s deportation process.
So, by what measure does she judge her own effectiveness if she has been on the losing side of all of these key debates?
Chris Whipple:
Yes, it’s a great question.
And the answer is complicated. The answer is that she seems to want to have it both ways. I think she wants to be regarded the way some of the great White House chiefs in history have been regarded, Leon Panetta, James A. Baker III, Baker under Reagan, Panetta under Clinton.
These were people who could tell the president hard truths. And yet, at the same time, she, frankly, admits that the battles she has with Donald Trump are over little things, not the big constitutional issues that a White House chief sometimes has to call the president on.
So there’s — I found — and I also found that there’s a fascinating kind of journey that she takes. In the beginning, she seems to be trying to tap the brakes on some of Donald Trump’s successes. And now it seems to me she’s pretty much all in.
Geoff Bennett:
What does your reporting and your conversations with her reveal about the current dynamics within the Trump White House?
Chris Whipple:
Well, I think the current dynamics are really interesting and, obviously, the reaction to my piece in “Vanity Fair.” It’s 9,500 words. It’s — there’s plenty of context. It’s nuanced. I think it’s quite fair. And I praise Susie Wiles for many of her abilities.
But what’s clear is that, as unhappy as they may be about this piece and the things that she said, she’s not going to the doghouse or the woodshed. She — her bond with Donald Trump is solid. And that’s one of the fascinating things about this piece. And it goes all the way back to 2015, when they first met, and Trump was so impressed that she was the daughter of Pat Summerall, the famous sportscaster.
They — she has a real magic with Donald Trump.
Geoff Bennett:
Chris Whipple, thanks again for joining us.
Chris Whipple:
Thanks for having me.
