DECEMBER 2025 – It’s been days of fallout now since the Dec. 16 release of Chris Whipple’s two-part piece on Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – columnists like Peggy Noonan and Frank Bruni have wrestled with why Wiles, not a year into Trump’s term, would go full-on tape-recorded to spout her opinions of her boss and her White House colleagues. Why so candid, why so indiscreet? There are a couple of explanations: First, there’s the manifest lack of sophistication of Wiles, and the other members of the Trump White House. Virtually no one in this administration thinks through the consequences of their impulsive words and deeds, and Wiles’s chats with Whipple are part of that pattern. Can anyone recall any executive branch engaging in so much dissonant, oh-didn’t-mean-that behavior? For Wiles to call it a “hit piece” after sitting for multiple Sunday interviews is downright risible.
But there’s more to it: The six Trumpsters posing with Wiles in that Vanity Fair photo are looking for social acceptance and validation – here are some (nominally) powerful and influential people who, like their boss, still feel dissed.
The writer Tom Wolfe once said that after people satisfy their basic needs of food and shelter, life just becomes a game of fighting for social status. For these Trumpsters, Washington – and much of the world – just doesn’t take them seriously. Social acceptance is something everyone craves, but as people move up the ladder the stakes seem to multiply. And for these Trumpsters, with their chips solidly on their shoulders, are preoccupied with how the world treats them.
The 75-year-old Whipple is fairly credible as an interviewer of WH Chiefs of Staff, and with this piece he brought Vanity Fair something more than its usual gossip and gloss. Moreover, Vanity Fare formatted the 2-piece report into an impressive subscription drive – access the first one for free, read the second by paying $12 for an annual subscription. We hope it was a fruitful strategy for Conde Nast.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-1