Another Trump lackey has failed to learn the oldest lesson of all

In her steamy Vanity Fair interview, Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, painted herself as a less than quiet yet behind-the-scenes operator who deliberately keeps a low profile. That’s why you go to Vanity Fair to tell your story.

She offered an oddly literal example of her persona.

During public Oval Office functions, Wiles said, she doesn’t sit on the couch beside the president with the power players but in a chair off to the side. She even joked about repeatedly getting bonked on the head by boom mikes wielded by journalists crammed into the room.

Maybe that explains why she agreed to be interviewed in the first place? And her defensive response to the story when it came out? And the White House's ridiculous response that she didn’t know it was on the record?

This seemingly trivial boom mike detail is a perfect metaphor for Wiles’s role. She relays being questioned by Trump about why she’s leaving a meeting, and tries to make it sound like she’s in control, telling him her exit had nothing to do with him.

You tell him, Susie!

But reading closely, it’s the opposite. Wiles occupies a sidelined, marginal position, repeatedly knocked around by chaos while Trump barrels ahead, dragging the country on a reckless ride she neither restrains nor guides.

Since Trump’s November election and Wiles’s appointment as the first female chief of staff, pundits have offered a somewhat flattering portrait of her as a “different” kind of Trump lackey. The daughter of NFL kicker and legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, she carries a halo effect, evident to the bros, that some might argue inflates her image.

Wiles is being praised for moments of candor such as calling out Vice President JD Vance as a “conspiracy theorist,” labeling Elon Musk an “odd, odd duck,” and describing budget director Russell Vought as a “right-wing absolute zealot.” She also claimed Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality.” Was that supposed to be a compliment?

Through her tenure, she’s been portrayed as a voice of reason in an administration defined by thugs and cruelty. Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, tried desperately to be a guardrail. Wiles is an orange cone Trump keeps knocking over and flattening.

Wiles is not a principled gatekeeper or a check on Trump’s excesses. She’s a defender and enabler of a grotesque, unruly and crude president who undermines democratic norms, endangers vulnerable communities, flouts laws and ethics, and prioritizes his bank account over national well-being.

She hasn’t stopped a single horrific or illegal action since Trump’s return. Instead, she rationalizes and excuses his worst impulses. She claims to “stand up” to Trump, yet the interview offers no evidence she’s ever forced him to change course. Not once do you hear Wiles say, “He told me, ‘You’re right, Susie. I was wrong, and I will keep listening to you.’”

Consider her reactions to Trump’s more egregious actions. She feigns horror at his push to cut USAID, an agency crucial for global health and democracy, yet did nothing to prevent its devastating demolition.

She tries to justify Trump’s military deployment in Washington, D.C., which a judge ruled unlawful. And she chews out Pam Bondi for her handling of the Epstein files. Really? Trump delaying, obfuscating, and forcing Mike Johnson to keep the House out was all actually Bondi?

All Wiles did was find a scapegoat.

She describes Trump’s “retribution tour” of political targets as a carefully negotiated 90-day deal. That’s laughable! It’s an attempt to frame his brutal political campaign as manageable, the kind of verbal acrobatics Trump’s Art of the Deal persona would approve of. Let’s shake hands while my fingers are crossed behind my back.

Wiles’s willingness to rationalize this conduct suggests stupidity or complicity.

TheVanity Fair profile exposes her naivety and lack of influence. Her decision to participate in a year-long interview may have been an attempt to raise her own profile, but anyone familiar with Trump’s world knows nothing good comes from trying to outshine him. It never ends well. Never.

In trying to normalize Trump, she instead highlights how abnormal everything is. Is Wiles the Trump soothsayer, the arbiter of honesty in the West Wing? Hardly. She’s just another cog.

She’s no voice of conscience or reason. She’s a Trump-patented, gold-plated political accessory, a bystander who takes the occasional hit but never intervenes to stop the damage.

The image of Wiles getting bonked by boom mikes captures this dynamic perfectly. It’s not the microphones hitting her. It’s King Donald’s metaphorical cudgel of wild and illicit ideas, comments, and Truth Social posts, pounding her into submission.

Trump’s presidency is defined by disinformation and disregard for norms. To imagine Wiles as the “voice of reason” within that madness of KIng Donald is dangerously misleading. She does not stand up to Trump. She facilitates his worst impulses.

As a woman in a position of influence, Wiles remains silent in the face of Trump’s relentless misogyny. Trump demeans women with insults, most recently “piggy,” “nasty,” and “stupid.” It’s offensive language, emblematic of a toxic culture. Yet Wiles metaphorically sits in that corner chair, silent as insults fly.

An Episcopalian who calls herself “Catholic lite,” Wiles is noted for not spewing expletives like her boss. But it would be easier to respect a swearing atheist than Wiles, who looks the other way as Trump seemingly carries on a love affair with Satan, as South Park has it.

Her silence reveals how normalized enabling Trump’s behavior has become. Wonder what she told Trump about his horrific Rob Reiner post? You guessed it. Nothing.

Finally, that everyone in Trump world, all the odd ducks, the conspirators and the zealots, have rushed to her defense only means she's one of them.

In the end, Susie Wiles getting repeatedly thumped on the head by boom mikes is more than a funny anecdote. The booming noise coming from Trump’s bully pulpit pounds everyone, beating them into submission and lunacy — especially Wiles.