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Why a rare Susie Wiles interview became media catnip — and shook up the Trump White House

Poynter · Tom Jones · last updated

This might go down as 2025’s interview of the year.

Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple talked with a key figure in the Trump White House who rarely speaks publicly: chief of staff Susie Wiles. Here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of that interview.

Access to Wiles is so rare that other news outlets wrote about the interview.

They also wrote about it because Wiles didn’t hold back. Unlike many who are in President Donald Trump’s orbit, Wiles wasn’t afraid to spill the tea.

She had some negative — or at the very least, brutally honest — things to say about Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Elon Musk and even Trump himself.

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Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.

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