Susie Wiles has a reputation. Ask anyone in Washington and words like “strategic,” “disciplined,” and “skilled” come up. She’s widely held to be one of the most effective tacticians in modern politics.
She’s also known for her low-key, low-drama energy, preferring to remain behind-the-scenes as opposed to preening for cameras like so many other figures in President Trump’s orbit.
Trump’s nickname for his chief of staff is “The Ice Maiden,” referring to her coolheaded nature. The former mayor of Jacksonville said Wiles is “a political savant” who possesses “just otherworldly sort of political instincts.” She herself has said her specialty is “creating order from chaos.”
So, how the hell did a two-part, 11-interview Vanity Fair exposé, in which Wiles unabashedly and recklessly critiques members of Trump’s inner circle, contradicts Trump himself, and reveals some truly stunning behind-the-scenes details — on the record — come to be?
The astonishing set of interviews writer Chris Whipple conducted with Wiles over months has rocked Washington, sent Trump’s comms shop into hyperdrive, and has everyone wondering how Wiles, such a political pro, let this even happen.
Is she sabotaging him? Is she trying to get out and in the most explosive way possible? Is she using the press to force some course-correction inside the White House?
I suspect the explanation is far more simple and less sinister: ego.
For one, it’s hard to say no when a glossy outlet like Vanity Fair pitches a longform profile, complete with photo shoots. For another, it’s not hard to imagine someone like Wiles believing they could outsmart the reporter and control the narrative. But when you give 11 interviews worth of access, you relinquish control. Wiles either got too comfortable or too cocky.
Regardless, the damage is done. Her revelations are out there for everyone to read — and, thanks to recordings, hear.
But just what will the damage be? Are Wiles’ admissions merely salacious or could they hurt Trump and Republicans as we approach a midterm election year?
There’s good reason to believe it will be the latter. Here are the most damning parts of her interview:
Retribution: One of the most immediate effects of Wiles’ interview could be her admission that Trump is pursuing political opponents for retribution. It’s an argument his targets, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI head James Comey, are making right now to judges who will decide whether those cases have any merit. Expect the comments to end up cited in current and future court filings.
Regime change: Wiles contradicts Pentagon and White House messaging on Trump’s lethal boat strikes, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump have justified as a war on drugs. Wiles admits Trump “wants to keep blowing boats up until [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro cries uncle.” Regime change, in addition to being unconstitutional, isn’t what the America First MAGA crowd voted for, and they’ll likely let him know that. Additionally, that admission could end up being instrumental if someone like Hegseth is ever tried for war crimes.
Tariffs: Wiles says what everyone but Trump seems to know, which is that not everyone agrees with his trade war. Of the rollout, she says “So much thinking out loud is what I would call it.” And, “There was a huge disagreement over whether [tariffs were] a good idea.” As voters gear up for midterms and blame tariffs for rising prices and unemployment, this admission could haunt Trump and Republicans.
Epstein: Wiles absolutely demolishes Attorney General Pam Bondi on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and how it angered some in the MAGA fold, like Joe Rogan fans. “I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” she says. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.” Discrediting the AG casts a pall on the entire administration, as well as its attempts at burying the investigation.
At a time when Trump’s world is caving in on him, these kinds of free-wheeling, inner-sanctum revelations, and from one of his most trusted and respected advisers, could be disastrous for Trump, disastrous for some of his cabinet members, disastrous for Republicans looking to hold onto their majority.
For a woman known for creating order out of chaos, she just poured gasoline on a fire.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
Ben Droz
Ben Droz
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on October 05, 2026 in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home
I was driving home to San Diego from Los Angeles on Monday night when I heard that the President of the United States had offered both cities up to Iran as bomb targets. At a rally in Nebraska, defending his war, Trump told the crowd, “let [Iran] take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego.” It was, he said, “a very small price to pay.”
I was coming from a Bernie Sanders rally for Proposition 40, the one-time tax on California billionaires that would send 90% of its revenue to healthcare. We desperately need it to pass because, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, Trump signed a law that will strip health coverage from 10 million Americans; this tax will make sure we can still cover Californians. Call me crazy, but I think taxing billionaires one time so we can make sure kids in California get to see a doctor is a very small price to pay. I also think that even if Trump were joking, it is indefensible to make jokes about the potential destruction of so many lives. Human life is never a small price to pay. Human life is priceless.
Plus, the reality is: here in San Diego, we’re already paying the price for Trump’s actions, and it’s not small at all. He has gutted FEMA, tried to kill climate resiliency programs, and destroyed public health standards, while his signature law is set to cut off health insurance and food support for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. Like plenty of American cities, San Diego is already busy finding local solutions to respond to the problems this president has recklessly created.
Not to mention, at least 19 American service members have been killed in this war already. Human rights monitors have documented more than 3,600 dead in Iran by April alone. Here at home, gas is sitting just pennies below its all-time record. Taxpayers have already spent more than $45 billion on the war, while Trump’s oil and gas portfolio has grown by roughly $15.5 million this year alone. Of course anything is a “small price” to someone paying free.99 for this war, and profiting from it. Meanwhile, We the People are paying twice: first for the war, and then for the consequences of that war. But now he wants San Diego to pay a third time, flippantly offering us up to Iran.
It is worth noticing which cities he thought to name. Were San Diego and Los Angeles strategically chosen to signify something to his audience, or were they simply the first cities that came to mind as expendable places? Either way, the effect is to normalize—-and to gauge a crowd’s reaction to–the idea of massive violence in major California cities, suitable targets because of their perceived liberal lean. So what if Iran needs to bomb a little bit of America before the war can be over? Who cares, says Trump, if they target Los Angeles and San Diego?
By the way, why didn’t he offer up San Francisco, the free-love hippie-town MAGA loves to hate (and also my birthplace)? Could it be because that’s where the tech titans live? The same ones who joined Trump for Xi Jinping’s state dinner, a guest list worth a combined $2.4 trillion?
San Diego may have fewer billionaires, but it is home to more than 115,000 active-duty service members and 230,000 veterans. One in six active-duty sailors–in the entire Navy–is stationed here. So is one in four Marines. You cannot throw a rock in this county without hitting a military family: brats and spouses and veterans are among us. I got out of the Navy last year after ten years, and eight of those were here in San Diego. When Trump says “let ‘em take out San Diego,” he’s talking about the backbone of the United States military. He’s also talking about the people fighting his war.
San Diego has not been watching this war from the sidelines. Today, the USS Abraham Lincoln returns to North Island after an almost yearlong deployment to the Middle East that featured food shortages, broken toilets, and mold in the showers after 286 days at sea without a single port call. Eight sailors in the Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide, but in August, when a reporter asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said “not nearly long enough.” Now he has told a crowd in Nebraska that we should let Iran take out the city those sailors call home. These are sociopathic sentiments.
Last week at Quantico, Pete Hegseth closed his address to the force by telling them, “President Trump has your back and so do I.” To the contrary, President Trump has put one of the biggest military towns in the country forward as a target for our adversaries. With friends like these, the “domestic” in “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” starts to sound a lot less hypothetical.
San Diego is home to Naval Air Station North Island, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, the Point Loma submarine base, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar (and I have been permanently stationed at or trained at all of them). If Iran bombed San Diego and Los Angeles, aside from the devastating loss of life, it would cripple an immense share of our national security readiness.
And for what, exactly? Trump says the war is “essentially almost over with.” This is the same man who claimed in June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” then launched a war over it anyway on February 28. More than seven months later, he wants us to believe two things at once: that we’ve basically won, and that we might need to sacrifice an American city or two to finish winning. If the war is almost over, why does anybody need to take out San Diego?
I wonder if Trump’s endorsed candidate for California’s 48th District here in San Diego County will respond to these remarks. He recently said “no pain, no gain,” when referring to the gas prices San Diegans are paying. Jim Desmond, would you apply that same mindset if we were bombed? Or do you have the moral courage to stand up for the people you’re running to represent?
Last November, six Democratic members of Congress, all veterans, including Senator Mark Kelly, recorded a video reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, restating the law that says so. Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and then his Justice Department went looking for an indictment, which a grand jury refused. The president treated reading the law out loud to the troops as a capital offense, but then he himself invited a foreign enemy to destroy two American cities, possibly as a punchline. Is anyone calling the latter sedition? Who is demanding accountability?
Calling our lives a small price to pay affirms a moral bankruptcy, as well as an obvious dereliction of duty to the office he holds. While we can’t impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment ourselves, we must stop being so quiet about what we’re paying already. We can make our voices heard by calling our representatives, writing op-eds, knocking doors, phone banking, and voting in defiance of the man who threatens the safety of our city. Ballots are already arriving in mailboxes. Vote, and vote yes on 40 (and no on 41 and 42).
Trump has been harming our cities for a while, but now he is inviting our military adversaries to join him in the harm. If we have any self-respect as Americans, we must not tolerate our leaders disregarding the dignity of lives in this way. We must fight for our home.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.