White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles described US President Donald Trump as someone with an alcoholic personality.
Wiles said this while offering unusually candid assessments of President Trump, his second-term agenda and his inner circle in a series of interviews conducted over the past year and published Tuesday by Vanity Fair.
In 11 interviews with author Chris Whipple during Trump’s first year in office, Wiles discussed governing style, political disputes and internal tensions, offering details and opinions typically reserved for memoirs long after an administration ends.
READ ALSO: FULL TEXT: Trump expands travel restrictions, adds Nigeria and others
According to CNN, the interviews cover Trump’s approach to power, his appetite for retaliation and disagreements related to deportations, tariffs, foreign policy and pardons.
Wiles described Trump, a teetotaler, as having “an alcoholic personality,” a trait he said he recognizes from his father, sportscaster Pat Summerall.
“High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink,” he said.
“And that’s why I’m a bit of an expert on big personalities.”
He said Trump governs with “the idea that there is nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing,” and acknowledged that many actions in his second term were determined by anger toward perceived enemies.
Early in the administration, Wiles said he tried to limit that push.
“We have a flexible agreement that the reckoning will end before the first 90 days are up,” he said.
In August 2025, he offered a different vision. “I don’t think I’m on a retaliation tour,” he said, describing Trump’s principle as: “‘I don’t want what happened to me to happen to someone else.'”
The interviews also include harsh assessments of Trump’s closest allies. As for Vice President JD Vance, Wiles said he has been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade” and described his turn toward Trump as “kind of political.”
Vance later said he was “sometimes” a conspiracy theorist, but defended Wiles, saying he had never seen her be disloyal to the president.
Of tech billionaire Elon Musk, Wiles said he overstepped his mark during his work in the government efficiency department, describing him as “a complete solo actor… a very, very strange duck.”
She said the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) left her “initially horrified.” “He decided it was better to close it, fire everyone, let them out and then rebuild. It’s not the way I would do it.”
Wiles also spoke about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, saying Bondi “forgot,” particularly by raising expectations about the disclosure of materials that later did not exist.
He said Trump was wrong to suggest that former President Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s island.
“There’s no evidence,” Wiles said. “The president was wrong about that.”
Regarding Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whom he called “Peculiar Bobby,” Wiles defended his role in the administration.
“He goes further, some would say too far. But I say to get back to the center, you have to go too far.”
According to The Guardian, Wiles acknowledged several instances where his advice was ignored.
He said he urged Trump not to pardon the most violent rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed to delay announcing major tariffs amid internal disagreements.
Regarding the implementation of April’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, he said there was “a lot of thinking out loud” and that he asked Vance to tell Trump “not to talk about tariffs today” until advisers were unified. “It’s been more painful than I expected,” he said.
In his opinion on Venezuela, Wiles said Trump’s goal went beyond his stated justifications. In November, he said the president “wants to keep blowing up ships until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle,” suggesting the attacks were aimed at removing Maduro from power, even as the administration said the targets were drug smuggling operations.
After the interviews were published, Wiles said the article misrepresented his views.
“The article published early this morning is a falsely framed swipe at me and the best president, White House staff and cabinet in history,” he wrote on X, saying key context had been left out. While Cabinet officials and aides publicly defended her, Wiles did not deny making any of the cited comments.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “does not have a greater or more loyal adviser than Susie,” adding that the administration has her back.
However, Whipple defended his reporting, saying that all interviews were recorded and presented accurately.
“Everything was scrupulously in context,” he said.
(CNN and The Guardian)