Even Marco Rubio’s pal JD Vance is making fun of the unflattering photos that accompanied Vanity Fair’s bombshell article about President Donald Trump’s inner circle.
The piece, which featured a series of shockingly candid interviews with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about Trump and his top advisers, also included glamor shots of Wiles, Rubio, Vance, and other key aides, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Rubio, however, also also the subject of two brutal solo images: an extreme close-up, black-and-white image in which his wrinkles and sun damage are clearly visible, and an odd shot of him standing in front of a bare wall and looking down at a lamp.
Late Wednesday night, Rubio posted the lamp photo and captioned it, “#NewProfilePic.” As of Thursday morning, the image was indeed his new profile photo on the social media platform X.
In response, Vance—who had offered the photographer money in exchange for making Rubio look worse than him—wrote, “I guess I owe that guy $1,000.”
The comment was a reference to an editor’s note from global editorial director Mark Guiducci, who described what it was like for the magazine to visit the White House for the photo shoots.
“We’re all going to get fired for this,” one of the officials said.
“Except for me,” Vance replied. “I have 100 percent job security.”
When it was time for photographer Christopher Anderson to photograph Vance individually, he told the production team, “I’ll give you $100 for every person you make look really s----y compared to me. And $1,000 if it’s Marco.”
Apparently as requested, the lamp photo of Rubio accompanied the editor’s note.
In the accompanying articles, Wiles gave her unfiltered views on Trump and Vance describing the president as having “an alcoholic’s personality” and saying the vice president had been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade.”
She also discussed Vance and Rubio’s transformation from anti-Trump Republicans to MAGA acolytes, describing Vance’s conversion as “sort of political” since he needed Trump’s endorsement for his successful 2022 Senate race.
Soon after the piece was published on Tuesday, Trump’s cabinet went into damage-control mode and issued similar statements blasting Vanity Fair and praising Wiles, who also tried to distance herself from the piece.
In a statement posted to X, Wiles called the story a “hit piece” and claimed that “significant context was disregarded.”
“I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team,” she said. “None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!”
Rubio also wrote wrote on X that, “It is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated pictures and reported statements without context to try and make the WH team look bad.”
“And there is nobody more loyal or committed to President Trump’s mission than Susie Wiles,” he added.” She is one of the main reasons why we have a team that works together to carry out the President’s promises to the American people.”
But during an appearance on The Daily Beast Podcast, the journalist who wrote the piece, author Chris Whipple, said Wiles was enthusiastic about the idea of a story for Vanity Fair, calling her criticism after the fact a “non-denial denial.”
“It’s interesting that the White House has not disputed a single fact in the piece because we’re on absolutely solid ground,” he said. “Everything in that piece—everything Susie said—was on the record and on tape, by the way. So look, I understand that, you know, they’ve made a statement. It speaks for itself. But the Vanity Fair piece is absolutely solid, and all of her comments were on the record."
So far, the White House has stood behind Wiles.
“President Trump has no greater or more loyal advisor than Susie,” Leavitt wrote on X. “The entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”
