An interview with White House staffer Susie Wiles has shown the administration is "every bit as bad as we feared", according to a political correspondent.
David Gardner claimed the series of interviews Wiles gave to Vanity Fair paints a much worse picture of inside Donald Trump's administration than first thought. Writing in The Daily Beast, Gardner suggested the "glimpse behind the White House walls" is a shocking showcase of how the country is run.
He wrote, "Wiles was always going to blame the media. The truth is sometimes hard when you see it written in cold, hard print. The real issue is that she offered us a glimpse behind the White House walls. And it’s every bit as bad as we feared."
Wiles would dub Vice President JD Vance a conspiracy theorist, claim Elon Musk microdosed ketamine during his time as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, and that Pam Bondi had botched the release of the Epstein files.
All of this points to what MAGA voters are wanting to hear, Gardner suggested. The details on Vance, Musk, and Bondi paint a very different picture to the stability MAGA members were hoping to gauge.
Gardner wrote, "Hers is the voice of reason, but reason is not what Trump’s MAGA supporters want to hear. They want to believe in the mission, not in chaos." Wiles has worked as Trump's Chief of Staff in the White House across both of his terms as president.
Though she would criticise the Vanity Fair piece once it was published, Gardner believes Wiles saw no reason to lie to a journalist who had been "welcomed into the administration's inner circle".
He wrote, "When she was asked questions by one of the country’s most respected and complete political writers, who was welcomed into the administration’s inner circle, she saw no reason to lie. So she told the truth.
"And it could well burn down the White House MAGA myth she helped create, that the administration was fervently following a cogent strategy."
Wiles spoke 11 times to Christopher Whipple, who has written a highly regarded book on other White House chiefs of staff, and the magazine published the first of two parts of an article based on those conversations that shocked many readers with claims about the president and other high-ranking administration officials.