A former Homeland Security official during Donald Trump’s first term has mocked White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for unwittingly “giving up the farm” with a string of shocking admissions to Vanity Fair.
Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, told All In With Chris Hayes that Wiles’ explosive comments about the president’s inner circle came about because MAGA White House officials are “totally desperate” for media attention.
“If you were going to take these interviews that Susie Wiles did over the past 11 months—if I was going to turn this into a novella— it would be called something like ‘Unintended Confessions of Criminal Conspiracy,’” Taylor said. “Because, as she’s folding laundry, as she’s driving back from church, she’s just sort of confessing these things to the Vanity Fair reporter, like a friend, like a confidant.
“Which suggests to me that the reporter did their job—disarming them enough to tell the truth. But in this case, the truth was Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, basically admitting to the administration’s lawlessness.”
Among the long list of highlights in the Vanity Fair profile was Wiles describing the teetotal president as having an “alcoholic’s personality” and saying he “operates with a view that there’s nothing he can’t do.”
Wiles also said Trump plans on “blowing boats up” suspected of carrying Venezuelan drug smugglers—acts already facing accusations of potential war crimes—until Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro “cries uncle.” As noted by Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple, Wiles appeared to suggest that the Trump administration is using strikes on alleged drug boats as a pretext to pursue regime change in the South American country, rather than to combat so-called “narco-terrorists.”
Elsewhere, Wiles admitted that Trump’s “score-settling” revenge campaign against his political enemies was originally supposed to end after 90 days. She also said the failed effort to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James—who prosecuted Trump for filing fraudulent financial statements—on fraud charges “might be the one retribution.”
Other explosive remarks included Wiles calling Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist for a decade” and referring to Elon Musk as an “avowed ketamine [user].” She added that the former DOGE leader’s gutting of USAID under his federal cost-cutting mandate initially left her “aghast.”
The usually media-shy Wiles has since attempted to contain the fallout, claiming the profile was a “disingenuously framed hit piece.”
Taylor added during his MS Now appearance that Wiles was “giving up the farm” by being so open about Trump’s inner circle in the mistaken belief she would receive a “glamorous piece” from Vanity Fair in return.
“This was a very penetrating look into this administration,” Taylor said. “It may not have been surprising, because we know this is who they are, but for them to admit this is who they are is what’s damning.”
In response, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Beast: “President Trump has no greater or more loyal adviser than Susie. The entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her.”
