Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, criticizes Bondi and opines on Trump in Vanity Fair

WASHINGTON AP Susie Wiles President Donald Trump s understated but influential chief of staff criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein situation and offered an unvarnished take on her boss and those in his orbit in a series of observations that were published Tuesday in Vanity Fair The magazine s two-part profile of Wiles at once sent shock waves through Washington while sending the West Wing into damage control The first woman to ever hold her current post Wiles pushed back on what she described as a hit piece that lacked context But neither she nor other West Wing authorities who came to her defense disputed any details in the profile a wide-ranging narrative that included Wiles assessments of the teetotaling Trump as having an alcoholic s personality Vice President JD Vance as a calculating conspiracy theorist and Soundness Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr as quirky Bobby On Epstein Wiles explained the magazine that she underestimated the shame involving the disgraced financier but she sharply criticized how Bondi managed the incident and the constituents s expectations She explained at one point that Trump s tariffs had been more painful than expected She conceded certain mistakes in Trump s mass deportation campaign and suggested that the president s retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies has gone beyond what she initially needed But Wiles who managed Trump s comeback campaign broadly defended the president s aggressive second term agenda including affirming that Trump wants to keep bombing alleged drug boats in the waters off the coast of Venezuela until that country s leader Nicolas Maduro cries uncle Wiles pushed back but without any denials After the comments were published Wiles disparaged it as a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President White House staff and Cabinet in history Important context was disregarded and much of what I and others reported about the gang and the President was left out of the story she wrote in a social media post I assume after reading it that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our company Wiles did not deny the comments that were attributed to her Press secretary Karoline Leavitt also rose to Wiles defense writing on the X platform that President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie The entire Administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her White House budget chief Russell Vought added his praise as well posting on social media that Trump s West Wing through two presidencies has never worked this well or been more oriented towards accomplishing what he wants to In her interviews Wiles praised Vought while describing him as right-wing absolute zealot The chief of staff criticizes the attorney general Trump tapped Wiles after she managed his campaign She is known for shunning the spotlight so it is rare for her to speak as extensively and openly as she did about the president to the magazine which published its lengthy interview with her and other members of the White House staff and the Cabinet Wiles has been speaking to Vanity Fair since just before Trump took office last January Petitioned about Epstein Wiles announced she hadn t tracked the community focus on whether all these rich significant men went to that nasty island and did unforgivable things to young girls She announced she has read the Epstein file and that Trump is not in the file doing anything awful He and Epstein were friends before they had a falling out The Justice Department is facing a Friday deadline to release everything it has on Epstein after Trump who had objected to the release signed regulation requiring that the papers be made populace Wiles criticized Bondi s handling of the event going back to earlier in the year when she distributed binders to a group of social media influencers that included no new information about Epstein That led to even more calls from Trump s base for the files to be distributed I think she totally whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this Wiles noted of Bondi First she gave them binders full of nothingness And then she noted 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 An insider s look at the president with an alcoholic s personality Wiles over the series of interviews described the president behind the scenes very much as he presents himself in society an intense figure who thinks in broad strokes yet is often not concerned with the details of process and procedures She added though that he has not been as angry or temperamental as is often suggested even as she affirmed his ruthlessness and determination to achieve retribution against those he considers his political enemies Trump she reported has an alcoholic s personality even though the president does not drink But the personality trait is something she recognizes from her father the famous sports broadcaster Pat Summerall 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 she explained adding that Trump has a view that there s nothing he can t do Nothing zero nothing On Venezuela Wiles reported Trump wants to keep the pressure on Maduro He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle And people way smarter than me on that say that he will Her comment though seemed to contradict the administration s position that the strikes are about stopping drugs and saving American lives not regime change She mentioned the administration is very sure we know who we re blowing up The continued strikes and mounting death toll have drawn scrutiny from Congress which has pushed back and opened investigations Trump s vengeance comes with a purpose Wiles says Wiles described much of her job as channeling Trump s power whims and desired initiative outcomes including managing his desire for vengeance against his political opponents anyone he blames for his electoral defeat and those who pursued criminal cases against him after his first term We have a loose agreement that the amount settling will end before the first days are over Wiles disclosed early in his administration telling Vanity Fair that she does try to tamp down Trump s penchant for retribution Later in she pushed back I don t think he s on a retribution tour she mentioned arguing he was operating on a different principle I don t want what happened to me to happen to somebody else And so people that have done bad things need to get out of the leadership In certain cases it may look like retribution And there may be an element of that from time to time Who would blame him Not me Demanded about the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud Wiles allowed Well that might be the one retribution