WASHINGTON, D.C.: In a candid interview with Vanity Fair on December 16, Susie Wiles, U.S. President Donald Trump's influential chief of staff, described the president as someone with "an alcoholic's personality," and Vice President JD Vance as a calculating "conspiracy theorist."

She also criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and said she gave people "binders full of nothingness."

However, Wiles described the interview as a "disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history" that lacked context. She was backed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said the "entire administration is grateful for her steady leadership and united fully behind her."

Trump told the New York Post that he hadn't read the piece but retained confidence in Wiles. "Oh, she's fantastic."

Trump, however, agreed that he does have the personality of an alcoholic, and said he had "a very possessive personality."

The startlingly candid remarks from Wiles, who rarely speaks publicly given the behind-the-scenes nature of her job running the White House, raised questions about her position there.

But a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, dismissed the idea that Wiles might be on her way out. If they were rattled by negative news coverage, "none of us would work here," the official added.

It was quite uncharacteristic of Wiles to speak with Vanity Fair because she always preferred to stay in the background. Even during Trump's 2024 election night victory party, she avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

Most members of his Cabinet, along with former and current White House officials, posted statements praising Wiles and criticizing the media as dishonest. But none of them disputed what Wiles had said, and neither did Wiles.

She conceded the Trump administration's mistakes and even seemed to contradict the official reasoning for its bombing of alleged drug boats in the waters off the coast of Venezuela. Wiles appeared to confirm that the campaign is part of a push to oust Venezuela's authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, saying Trump "wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle."

In a social media post after the piece appeared, Wiles said that significant context had been disregarded and that much of what she and others had said about the team and the president was omitted from the story. She added that, after reading it, she assumed this had been done to portray an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president and their team.

Vance said he hadn't read the Vanity Fair piece, but defended Wiles, joking, "I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true."

Criticizing Bondi's handling of the Epstein files issue, Wiles said, "I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this. 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."

Bondi did not address the criticism when she released a statement supporting Wiles.