Ulta Beauty Ad Voice (2:27)

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Donald Trump (2:34)

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

Justin (2:43)

Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.

Anthony Zurcher (2:47)

And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmericasT in Washington, DC.

Justin (2:51)

We have a great interview to bring to you. It is an interview with Chris Whipple. He is the journalist behind the extraordinary interview with Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, an interview that he did for Vanity Fair. And actually not just one interview. He did a whole set of interviews that he's now put together and published. We will get to what the interview says in just a moment, I suppose. First, though, Anthony, we should talk a bit about Susie Wiles herself. So she's the chief of staff. She was, wasn't she? An absolutely central figure in the Trump team when they were trying to get elected for the second time. A guy called Chris La Savita and her really ran the whole operation. So she's not a kind of Johnny or a Janet come lately, is she? She's very much part of the Trump orbit, a central part of it.

Anthony Zurcher (3:36)

She is. And even going Back to the 2016 race, she was involved in Donald Trump's Florida campaign. She's from Florida. Donald Trump won Florida that year on the part to a surprising victory over Hillary Clinton. So she has been connected to Donald Trump for the entirety of Donald Trump's rise to national American politics, the pinnacle of American politics, and is a trusted voice. Was a trusted voice on the campaign trail and now is, as the chief of staff, perhaps the most influential senior advisor to Donald Trump. The chief of staff is the gatekeeper to the Oval Office, the person who determines who gets to see the president or what gets put in front of that person's nose. The president's schedule, I mean, all of it is essential and puts the chief of staff into a position of being the power player in most White Houses. And I think you could say also in this White House, if you want.

Justin (4:36)

To sum it up in a picture, it's that really famous shot, isn't it, of George W. Bush in that school on the day that 9, 11 happens. And the moment it is obvious that it is a terrorist attack and the person whispering in his ear, it's an iconic photo, isn't it? Is Andy Card, who was his chief of staff. That is the closeness of the relationship. You are the person who breaks the bad news. You're the gatekeeper in a way, aren't you?

Anthony Zurcher (5:07)

Yeah, yeah. And I think people compared it to the first lady or first man and the chief of staff are the two people who should be able to come up to a president and say, you're wrong, you're making a mistake. Where everyone else has to worry about bending to the president's will. The chief of staff has to be a person who will put a line in the sand and say no, or tell the president to do something else.

Justin (5:32)

Right. And she is very loyal to him, and he is pretty loyal to her. Let's listen to Donald Trump heaping praise on Susie Wiles at the White House summer soiree. It was back in June.

Donald Trump (5:42)

Amazing job, Susie. I'll tell you what, she's the first woman chief of staff in the history of our country, and I'm surprised to hear that. And I watch those men and she watches over them. And if they get a little bit out of line, they may be big, big shots. Defense, they may be at Commerce, they may be the biggest. They're scared of her. They're afraid. They don't want her coming after them.

Justin (6:10)

But now it's a really important point that, isn't it, Anthony? The point that he's making there is that there are a lot of big egos in the White House hanging around the White House trying to get the ear of the president. And at least until she gave this interview, everyone said, well, she's not one of those egos. She's really happy to be in the shadows. She's very powerful. Nobody suggested anything other than that. But she didn't have a big ego and didn't actually talk much to the media, did she?

Anthony Zurcher (6:35)

Right. No. She's been behind the scenes. I've seen her plenty of times in the White House during Trump's events or on the campaign trail. And she's always there. She's always in the room, but she's off to one side. She's kind of hovering over, watching. You could see, watch her eyes. And she's looking around the room and looking at the president. But she's not one of these people who commands the spotlight. And a good chief of staff really isn't supposed to. And you could contrast what she's done so far this term, Donald Trump's second term, with the revolving door of chiefs of staff that Donald Trump had during his first term in office, where he had Rance Priebus, who was a former head of the Republican National Committee, come in and you remember he was very dramatically left on a reigning tarmac when Donald Trump fired him and Air Force One took off and he had to find his own way home because the two of them had such a dramatic falling out. Or John Kelly, who was Donald Trump's homeland Security secretary, then brought in a former Marine general, brought in to run a tight ship as chief of staff. And he butted heads with Donald Trump throughout his time there and eventually became a critic of Donald Trump's during the 2024 presidential campaign. It was the source of a lot of unflattering stories about Trump. So now you have a loyalist there, someone who not only has Donald Trump's back and Donald Trump believes that she has his back, but also apparently is very good at her job and good at managing, as you mentioned, all of these different egos and all of these different currents and tensions that are pulling Donald Trump one direction or another.

Justin (8:19)

But here she is doing, I mean, it was 11 interviews, was it with a single reporter, with Chris Whipple. We ought to talk a bit about some of the top lines. I mean, one of them that really has caught people's attention. She describes Donald Trump as having an alcoholics personality, which is not helpful to the president, it seems to me.

Anthony Zurcher (8:40)

No. And Donald Trump doesn't drink alcohol, which is kind of an interesting factoid. His brother actually died of alcoholism, diseases related to alcoholism. So Donald Trump doesn't drink. And what Wiles was saying was comparing Donald Trump to her father, Pat Summerall, who was a famous football player and an even more famous football announcer in the NFL. One of the reasons why I think Donald Trump likes Susie Wiles so much is that he was a big football fan and he knew Pat Summerall. But Wiles has described how sumrall. Her father was an alcoholic, battled alcoholism throughout his adult life, and that it tends to make people's personalities even bigger and more brash. And so she was comparing that to Donald Trump who thinks he can do no wrong and is big and brash. And that is not the fact that Donald Trump drinks or has an addictive personality, but that his personality is such in a similar manner to people who do drink and become these big, brash, oversized personalities who think they can do no wrong.

Justin (9:47)

And it's worth saying Donald Trump has talked to the New York Post. He was doing an interview after this article came out in Vanity Fair and he said, I've said that many times about myself. This is that he's got an alcoholic personality. I'm fortunate, I'm not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I've said that. What's the word? Not possessive. Possessive and addictive type personality. That's exactly what he said. So actually he's basically saying, yes. I'm not sure necessarily would have wanted it brought up in these terms. But he's not denying it and he's certainly about it.

Anthony Zurcher (10:17)

He's agreeing.

Justin (10:17)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is other less helpful stuff though, including about J.D. vance. I mean, this is the, you know, you were pointing at this from the first administration, which basically went a bit crazy occasionally, didn't it? And people, they weren't left on the tarmac, they were briefing the press against other people in the administration. It all went really, genuinely haywire. And it's really striking, isn't it, Anthony, that up until now, this has been a very disciplined ship, actually, certainly compared with the first Trump administration. But now you've got, in this interview, Suzy Wiles saying of J.D. vance that he's been a conspiracy theorist for a decade, but also seems to me, more damagingly, his conversion to being a Trump loyalist was political. In other words, driven by political ambitions rather than principle. And she says of Rubio, actually, he's genuinely changed his mind. He didn't like Trump and now he does. But with Vance, she seems to be saying, well, you can't trust him as much. And that's. I mean, that's an unhelpful thing for a chief of staff in the White House to say, isn't it?

Chris Whipple (11:21)

Yeah.

Anthony Zurcher (11:22)

Wiles, in these interviews, really has pulled back the curtain and showed us some of the divisions within this White House. And yes, saying that about Vance, and I mean, it's no secret. I mean, he was critical of Donald Trump before he ran for Senate. And so I think it's a valid critique to say that he changed his stripe, possibly because of political expediency. But also, she took swipes at Pam Bondi and the Attorney general, and her handling of the Epstein file release said that she really whiffed on that. She was critical of Elon Musk, saying that he was a ketamine user and a very strange, strange bird. And she criticized or expressed skepticism about Donald Trump's January 6th pardons and the pardoning of some of the more violent offenders, about Trump's mass deportation. She talked about how there was a big debate in the White House in the run up to Donald Trump's tariff policy announcement, that there were people inside Donald Trump's inner circle who were vehemently opposed to these tariffs, saying that they were going to harm the economy. And so we've seen now that there are these rivalries and this jockeying for position, and that some of these people aren't always on the same page. And, I mean, it's partially a testament to her and the way she's run the White House that from the outside, they have had a united front so far. But now we get to see that that's not always the case.

Justin (12:50)

Two other things, two areas where she directly, it seems to me, treads on Trump's toes. One is, she says of Bill Clinton. So Trump keeps saying that Bill Clinton went to the island that was owned by Jeffrey Epstein where he abused women. He keeps saying Clinton was there, Clinton went on the plane, she says. Suzy Wiles says in this interview that the President is wrong about that. There isn't the evidence there, which is really interesting given that she's seen some of this material and it is a direct contradiction of the President. She also says that Pam Bondi, the Attorney general, she says she whiffed it when it comes to peculiarly American phrase, when it comes to, you know, whether there is a dossier and the dossier have names in it and all the rest of it. And can she produce the dossier? And of course, she initially said she was gonna produce it and then it was stuff turned out that had originally already been out there and now they're getting in a real mess about whether, whether they can produce names that are of interest to their own supporters. And Susie Welles is pretty critical of Pam Bondi as well. So there's kind of plenty of, there's plenty of meat in there, isn't there? And for the time being, it's exactly as you say, isn't it, Anthony? It allows the curtain to be drawn on people and they're able to defend themselves. And they are defending themselves and also defending her. But even as they do it, the eyes of the nation are a little bit more open than they were. So on the defense side of things, you know, Elon Musk has actually previously acknowledged that he's tried ketamine. He says he doesn't use it now. And when it comes to the stuff about J.D. vance, that he's a conspiracy theorist or has been for a decade, et cetera, et cetera, he. He's also addressed that head on. We ought to listen to it.

J.D. Vance (14:40)

I trust what you said. I haven't looked at the article. I of course have heard about it, but. Conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true. And by the way, Suzy and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy consciousness conspiracy theory back in 2020, that it was stupid to mask 3 year olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills. And you know why I really love Susie Wiles? Because Susie is who she is and the President's presence, she's the same exact person when the President isn't around. I've never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president or, and then go and counteract him or subvert his will behind the scenes. And that's what you want in a.

Anthony Zurcher (15:38)

Staffer, because as much so there you have J.D. vance downplaying the criticisms that Susie Wiles had of him making light of it. And I think it's remarkable how all of the senior Trump officials have all kind of circled the wagons and come to her defense. And it's a testament to the power she clearly has. No one wants to crosser. And also I think it's a reflection of the fact that this is a White House that doesn't want to be seen as sniping at each other. They seem to be at least publicly team players. So for the time being, they seem to be speaking all from the same page still.

Chris Whipple (16:17)

Yeah.

Justin (16:17)

And Susie Wise herself, as worth saying, is also weighed in now. So she's done it on X, saying the article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest president, White House staff and cabinet in history. Significant context, she says, was disregarded. Much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out of the story. It was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president and our team. I mean, to be honest, Anthony, when you read the whole article, it's quite long, it's in two sections, I'm not sure it does paint an entirely chaotic picture of the White House. It has her being very positive about Trump and it does quote other people, including quite significant people about the administration, saying it's all going very well. So I don't think it's well, we're going to hear from Chris Whipple in a second. But I think it's quite fair to call it a hit piece.

Anthony Zurcher (17:14)

No, I don't think so. It kind of ticks through. Donald Trump's first year in office pegged on these times that he spoke with her and talking about what have been at times controversial policies that the president has implemented and crises, some self made, some external that the president has had to deal with. And you don't always pick things that will put the subject of your interview in the best light, but you try to do it in a way that accurately reflects what the person is saying and she has not, or the points where she has contested whether something was an accurate statement of what she said, an accurate reflection of what she said. Chris Whipple recorded all the interviews and he's played them and he has been vindicated. Everything that he quoted her Saying she.

Justin (18:07)

Said, okay, well, that's a very good introduction to the man himself because he's joining us now. Hello, Chris.

Chris Whipple (18:13)

Hey, how are you?

Justin (18:14)

I'm good, thanks. This is really good of you because you're going to be a busy man at the moment.

Chris Whipple (18:19)

It's been, it hasn't been dull.

Justin (18:21)

I can imagine not. Have you taken a few calls from, from a central Washington location?

Chris Whipple (18:28)

Not really, to be honest. They, they, they had their say. They, as you noticed, right after the piece came out, and I think they're going to leave it at that. I think that when you start hearing words like context and framing and disingenuous, it tells you one thing, and that is you've done your job, you've hit your target. Because they haven't challenged a single assertion in the piece. And the reason for that is that they know it's all true and they know that it's all on tape. And that's why you're seeing what we used to call in the Watergate era. Ben Bradlee, the famous Washington Post editor, would talk about the Nixon White House and its non. Denials, Denials. That's what we've got here.

Anthony Zurcher (19:16)

So I guess the question, and someone posed this to me earlier today, and I wasn't quite sure what the answer is, why did Susie Wiles agree to do this interview? Why did she pull back the curtain for you? Normally you don't see chiefs of staff talk like this on record while they're in office.

Chris Whipple (19:35)

Yeah, it's absolutely extraordinary, very rare. And I think that, you know, my experience, I wrote a book about the Biden White House and senior White House officials almost always speak on what they call deep background, requiring that quotations be approved before they're in print. This was quite the opposite. Susie Wiles was on the record from the get go and almost always on the record throughout the 11 months. It's extraordinary. And I can't read her mind or tell you exactly what her motivation was, but I can tell you what she said to me, which is that she felt that the Trump White House in its first incarnation was unfairly maligned by the media, that President Trump was vilified, and that she was determined to try to get a fair hearing this time around. And I think she thought that I would give them a fair hearing.

Justin (20:37)

I mean, it's a fascinating study of all of these people. And it's, you know, it lays bare, I suppose, in a way, some relationship strains that you would have known would be there. One of the really striking ones to me is she's pretty blunt about Pam Bondi and the whole Epstein thing, which obviously behind the scenes and, and frankly, in front of the scenes, I suppose as well, has gone pretty wrong for them.

Chris Whipple (21:01)

Yeah, it was pretty fraught. And her whole account of the Epstein affair is fascinating. I think some readers may find it plausible and some may not. For example, when she says that she really completely underestimated the importance of it, the impact of it, of Trump's failure to turn over the files, to release the files, when he suggested during the campaign that he would. Some people may not believe that she's a savvy political operator. She certainly should have known that that was important to large segments of Trump's supporters. She also says at one point that I pressed her about the visit of Todd Blanche, the second in command of the Department of Justice and former Trump defense lawyer, when he went down and saw Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted sex trafficker, an Epstein confidant. Shortly thereafter, she winds up being moved to a less secure prison. And Susie Wiles told me that neither she nor Trump had known that this was going to happen and that the president was ticked off, as she put it. And it was fascinating to me, not only that, of course, but the fact that she talked about. She's read the, what she calls the Epstein file, and we talked about the contents.

Anthony Zurcher (22:24)

Yeah, there's something. Actually, one of the most interesting quotes that you have in here from her is about Epstein, but it's about Trump's coalition, because it's something I've been thinking about, like the durability of Trump's coalition. And she tells you that the people who are really interested in this Epstein case are the new members of the Trump coalition. They're not MAGA faithful. They're ones who kind of Trump lured over at some point, and she wants to convert them from just Trump voters to Republican voters. These are the Joe Rogan listeners, she said, the people who are new to their world. I mean, it seems like she is thinking about this in a way that's bigger than just Jeffrey Epstein. She's thinking about the larger politics of all this.

Chris Whipple (23:06)

Yeah, no, I think that's true. She's really determined and to try to maintain, to try to not to allow this MAGA coalition to splinter when Trump moves on, as she says he will after two terms. And that was also a newsworthy assertion by her. But she believes, and evidently JD Vance is particularly focused on these voters. The voters being. There's this overlapping block of voters, as you pointed out, some of them, Joe Rogan Listeners, younger members of newer members of the MAGA coalition who are angry about two things, Epstein and coziness with Israel, with Netanyahu. JD Vance is apparently focused on this group and they need to figure out what to do about it.

Justin (24:03)

Did you get the impression from your conversation with Susie Wiles that it is a, a done deal that Vance runs for office in 2028, that Rubio accepts that or not?

Chris Whipple (24:14)

Well, I think that Vance, as you know, has been at least informally sort of anointed by Trump. Trump has, has floated the notion of a Vance, Rubio ticket in that order. And I did put the question to Rubio directly. I said, well, you know, any, any interest in competing for the nomination in 2028. And he said, he said, no, if, if J.D. vance runs, I'm going to support him. So I found that interesting. Susie didn't anoint anyone, but I think she, she likes J.D. vance, despite her comment about him being a conspiracy theorist and his. And that his conversion to Trumpism was sort of political, in her words.

Justin (25:00)

On the psychological stuff, Chris. So that, that's the sort of politics of it. The psychological stuff is, is fascinating. And her position in, in a sense, her ability to say these things. So this business we were talking a bit about, this alcoholic personality thing that she obviously knows about because it's in her own family. And then Trump going on, I think, was the New York Post he was talking to subsequently in saying, yeah, kind of. I buy that about myself. I suppose it's a confirmation, isn't it, of things that we sense about Trump, that there is something disinhibited about it, something kind of driving him that is fascinating and in a sense, unique.

Chris Whipple (25:43)

Yeah, it's this grandiose confidence in him, in his abilities to do almost anything. Untethered to reality, my words, not Susie's. But Susie would tell you that he has an alcoholic's personality very much like her father when her father was inebriated larger than life. And in effect, she has a PhD in difficult men because she grew up the daughter of an alcoholic and staged interventions with her mother to get him into treatment. And then she went to work for a guy named Ron DeSantis, got him elected as governor of Florida. DeSantis then inexplicably turned on her for reasons she does not. She says she doesn't know to this day. History would have been very different if he hadn't, because she might not have gone to work for Donald Trump.

Anthony Zurcher (26:34)

She doesn't seem to like Elon Musk, though, or at least she doesn't seem to agree with some of the stuff he did when he came in and the level of disruption he had locking people out of their offices and all of that. Did that surprise you with her candor there or that she would take exception to him?

Chris Whipple (26:53)

Well, look, I was surprised by her candor from the beginning to the very end. And I give her credit for being unguarded and candid and freewheeling in these interviews. But yeah, it absolutely surprised me. Every interview I had with her, I was surprised by her candor. And that was a wild story of the evisceration of USAID by Musk when he came in like a kind of jacked up Nosferatu, tearing stuff apart all night long and then sleeping in a sleeping bag in the executive office building by day. So it's a wild story and of course, but not a funny story in this sense. It was deadly serious story because when he eviscerated usaid, untold numbers of lives were put in jeopardy because immunizations in Africa were shut down. She says Susie said she was aghast initially and she worked hard behind the scenes to try to claw back the life saving programs that were annihilated by Musk.

Justin (27:59)

Chris, we gotta let you go. It's so good of you to spend a bit of time with us, to have dropped in on ameracast and talked to our listeners right around the world. If people want to read the interview, which we thoroughly advise them to, it's on the Vanity Fair website now, isn't it? And will be available presumably for a bit. Chris, lovely to talk to you. Thank you.

Chris Whipple (28:16)

Thank you.

Anthony Zurcher (28:17)

Great to have you on.

Justin (28:19)

Fascinating stuff, Anthony. I just feel there is a way of looking at this, isn't there? That this is the beginning of the end. And there will be some who suggest that the wheels are beginning to fall off the bus and all the rest of it and all these things are happening and it's going to go back to being like it was in Trump one and possibly in a second term he gives up because he can't be bothered to go. It doesn't, to me, it doesn't smell quite like that yet. But there are certainly gonna be those who raise eyebrows just at the fact that she gave the interviews, she was as unguarded as she was, et cetera, et cetera, and that they're now gonna have to deal with it.

Anthony Zurcher (28:54)

Yeah, I mean, there's storm clouds on the horizon and I think actually in her candor, she touches on some of them. She's concerned about next year's midterms elections. She talks about how Donald Trump maybe should be paying a little less attention to Saudi Arabia and more to Americans economic concerns, something that we heard off the record on background, and maybe she was the source previously. But also I've heard publicly from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans who are worried about how their party's going to perform in under a year's time and how a Democratic wave could really complicate Donald Trump's last two years in office. So I think there is a certain natural tendency in a second presidential term for focus to start to shift beyond the current occupant of the Oval Office. And I thought it was really fascinating to hear Chris talk about JD Vance and what his priorities are, what he's thinking also about the dynamic between him and Rubio in this vying for who can be the heir to Donald Trump's legacy. But power wanes the closer you get to the end of your term. And we're seeing some of that. But we're also, I think, seeing some very real pitfalls that the administration might face in the days ahead.

Justin (30:11)

Home truths from Anthony Zuercher. That's it.

Anthony Zurcher (30:14)

Bye bye bye all.

Justin (30:18)

Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the ameracaster, that makes ameracast the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we get so you can send us an email. AmericaSTBC.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericaST Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Till next time. Bye bye.

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