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Vanity Fair’s two-part profile of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles landed like a gavel in the modern media circus, full of salacious excerpting and breathless framing designed to inflame rather than inform. The piece ran sweeping, out-of-context lines about internal White House dynamics and painted a picture of chaos where none exists, the sort of narrative the coastal press churns out to satisfy its audience of permanent partisans.
Among the most eyebrow-raising quotes attributed to Wiles were blunt characterizations of the president’s temperament, a dismissal of Vice President J.D. Vance as a “conspiracy theorist,” and pointed criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of sensitive files. The excerpts read less like a fair interview and more like a greatest-hits reel the magazine assembled to feed a predetermined storyline about dysfunction and scandal.
Wiles and the White House fought back swiftly, calling the Vanity Fair pieces “disingenuously framed” and accusing the publication of a bias of omission that left out the broader context of her remarks. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and other senior aides defended Wiles as an effective, loyal operator whose hard work is being smeared by sloppy reporting; this was not an honest profile but a political hit job.
The story grew stranger when reports surfaced that Vanity Fair’s piece included an allegation about Elon Musk’s personal life that Wiles denied making, and media outlets said there may be a recording the reporter cited—an allegation Wiles called “ridiculous” and emphatically rejected. Whether by selective editing or careless sourcing, the magazine’s choices here underline the rot in legacy media standards: if a recording exists, produce it; if not, retract the innuendo.
Conservative voices were predictably incandescent. Jack Posobiec, appearing on Newsmax’s Finnerty, tore into the Vanity Fair framing and demanded accountability from outlets that weaponize profile pieces to influence politics rather than report facts. Meanwhile, allies inside the administration and conservative commentators rallied around Wiles, praising her leadership and calling out the “insular chattering classes” for celebrating another narrative meant to undermine a functioning White House.
This episode should remind hardworking Americans that too many establishment publications have become political actors, not journalists; they hunt for clips that fit their prejudice and discard inconvenient context. Susie Wiles has earned her reputation by getting things done for the American people, not by scoring points for media elites, and conservatives should stand firm in defending effective governance against manufactured outrage.
