Trump backs chief of staff after Vanity Fair lifts lid on White House tensions

Donald Trump has moved quickly to defend his White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, after Vanity Fair published a series of interviews that exposed internal frictions inside his administration and offered unusually candid, and sometimes unflattering, assessments of figures in his inner circle.

Speaking to the New York Post on Tuesday, Trump said he was standing firmly by Wiles, whom he frequently calls the “most powerful woman in the world”.

“I have total confidence in Susie,” Trump said, adding that she had “done a fantastic job”.

The comments came after Vanity Fair released two articles based on interviews with Wiles that pulled back the curtain on Trump’s second-term White House. In the interviews, Wiles spoke bluntly about Trump’s personality, describing the teetotal president as having “an alcoholic’s personality” and a strong instinct for vengeance against perceived enemies.

“He has an alcoholic’s personality,” Wiles said, explaining that growing up with an alcoholic father had prepared her to manage “big personalities”.

Trump, who does not drink alcohol, nonetheless endorsed her characterisation.

“I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic,” he said. “I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality.”

Wiles also used the interviews to criticise how parts of the administration have handled politically sensitive issues, including the long-delayed release of information related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

On Attorney General Pam Bondi’s role, Wiles suggested she misread public expectations.

“First, she gave them binders full of nothingness,” Wiles said, arguing that Vice President JD Vance better understood why the issue mattered to a segment of the public, in part because he is himself “a conspiracy theorist”.

Addressing Trump’s own appearance in Epstein-related files, Wiles said: “We know he’s in the file”, but insisted that it did not show him doing “anything awful”.