Why does White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles have MAGA in a panic?

Within the Trump administration’s maelstrom of camera-ready secretaries, advisers and aides, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is a behind-the-scenes power, eschewing the headlines preferred by her colleagues as she brokers access and authority within the West Wing. But after a candid Vanity Fair interview in which she offered unvarnished opinions on the president (“has an alcoholic’s personality”), Attorney General Pam Bondi (“completely whiffed” the Jeffrey Epstein file release) and other top administration figures, Wiles suddenly finds herself in the spotlight. While the administration has publicly defended Wiles, not everyone in the MAGA-verse is quite so eager to drop it.

What did the commentators say?

Wiles’ comments, which included questioning the government’s handling of immigration enforcement, elicited a “full-throated defense” in public comments by administration officials, said CNN. But that support “masked a stunned White House inner circle left aghast” by what was taken by some insiders as a “significant blunder from a typically low-profile leader many entrusted to clean up messes, not make them.” Many administration figures have been left “scratching their heads” over the interview, said Politico. In particular, officials wonder how Wiles, “lauded for her political acumen and loyalty,” could have “miscalculated so badly.” The interview ultimately “fuels the idea that events are leading” President Donald Trump, “rather than the other way around.” It is “extremely demoralizing,” said one White House insider.

Informed by Trump’s first-term penchant for “constantly rebooting” his staff, her “disclosures” sent the nation’s capital into an “all-too-familiar guessing game of how much longer Wiles would stay in her job or what game she was playing,” said Time. But the president himself, who has repeatedly defended Wiles since the Vanity Fair interview was published, “delights in this sort of drama,” punishing subordinates “not when they dispute his agenda but when they get credited for shaping it.” By that token, many of Wiles’ comments “may have actually bought favor” from the president for painting the administration’s accomplishments as occurring “because Trump ordered them.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The scandal is contributing to a broader sense of Trump’s return toward something akin to his “chaotic first term for his fellow Republicans,” said Semafor. To be “as blunt as Wiles,” the administration’s insistence that “things are going well” is starting to “come across as willfully ignorant.” However, Trump ultimately “still needs” Wiles. Unlike former advisor Steve Bannon, who was “excommunicated from Trump world — at least for a while,” Wiles’ job “seems safe” for now, said The Atlantic. To many in the White House, the grace being extended to the chief of staff is a “telling reflection of how indispensable she is to the president.” The White House’s all-hands-on-deck pushback to criticism of Wiles was a “show of force” that “underscored Wiles’ importance to Trump.”

Although “virtually the entire Trump Cabinet” has come to Wiles’ defense in some capacity since the interview was published, her comments “repeatedly stray from or contradict the administration’s public line on Trump’s most controversial policies,” said Axios. At the same time, however, they reveal the “key to her success:” eschewing the role of “guardrail installed to influence or restrain Trump” and being a “facilitator” for Trump’s agenda overall. Authoritarian movements are built on the backs of the “Susie Wileses of the world” said Asawin Suebsaeng on The New Republic’s Daily Blast podcast. Such governments need people who are “willing to go along” with a project “despite their own personal, hidden (unless you accidentally blab about it to Vanity Fair) reservations” about how “grotesque and depraved” that effort can be.

What next?

While Wiles’ position appears secure for now, her comments may nevertheless cause headaches for the White House in the future. Her candid acknowledgement of Trump’s appetite for “retribution” against prominent figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey prompted “multiple attorneys working on the legal defenses for different high-profile political targets” to “immediately” start strategizing on how best to leverage her remarks, said Zeteo. The comments are being taken as a “welcome opportunity” by “lawyers for a variety of Trump targets” both currently under indictment and those waiting for further action by the administration.