White House does damage control over Susie Wiles interview
00:47:
(Chris Hayes)
Tonight on All In.
00:49:
(Donald Trump)
Do you know Susie Trump?
00:52:
(Donald Trump)
Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles.
00:55:
(Chris Hayes)
From new Epstein revelations to dirt on Bondi, Vance, Musk, and more, Donald Trump's chief of staff spills the tea with Vanity Fair.
01:04:
(Soundbite)
Portraits were taken of his inner circle.
01:06:
(Soundbite)
It looks like the White House was working hand in glove with Vanity Fair.
01:11:
(Chris Hayes)
Tonight, the wild fallout for a struggling president.
01:14:
(Chris Hayes)
Then...
01:15:
(Chris Hayes)
insulting someone who's just been murdered.
01:18:
(Chris Hayes)
It's so hateful and vile.
01:21:
(Chris Hayes)
The loud and growing backlash, the president's degradation of a cultural icon.
01:26:
(Chris Hayes)
Plus, his House Republican leadership will not allow a vote.
01:32:
(Donald Trump)
It is idiotic and shameful.
01:37:
(Chris Hayes)
Jamie Raskin on the Republican decision to let health care premiums skyrocket.
01:41:
(Chris Hayes)
And in Rhode Island with a mass shooting suspect still at large and a community in fear, the FBI director's PR tour rolls on.
01:50:
(Soundbite)
We are so excited to be joined by Cash and his beautiful girlfriend, Alexis.
01:56:
(Chris Hayes)
And All In starts right now.
02:03:
(Chris Hayes)
Good evening from New York.
02:04:
(Chris Hayes)
I'm Chris Hayes.
02:05:
(Chris Hayes)
Political gravity is rapidly pulling Donald Trump and his administration back to Earth.
02:11:
(Chris Hayes)
They are flailing, frankly, in ways that feels deeply, I would say, almost comfortingly familiar.
02:17:
(Chris Hayes)
They're unpopular.
02:18:
(Chris Hayes)
They're losing political capital.
02:19:
(Chris Hayes)
And they also seem to know it.
02:21:
(Chris Hayes)
And in that way, you might say all unhappy administrations are the same, because when things go bad, staffers start to go at each other's throats.
02:29:
(Chris Hayes)
And the release today of a huge two-part Vanity Fair piece with a top advisement president has set the administration into panic mode.
02:37:
(Chris Hayes)
Just listen to these quotes from the president's own handbook chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
02:42:
(Chris Hayes)
Vice President J.D.
02:42:
(Chris Hayes)
Vance has been, quote, a conspiracy theorist for a decade, adding that Vance's conversion from Never Trump to MAGA cheerleader was never principled, but, quote, sort of political.
02:52:
(Chris Hayes)
Wiles said that Doge architect Elon Musk was an odd, odd duck and an avowed ketamine user.
02:58:
(Chris Hayes)
When asked about one of Musk's tweets demonizing public sector workers, she replied, quote, I think that's when he's microdosing.
03:05:
(Chris Hayes)
Wiles also added that Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, quote, completely whiffed on the release of the Epstein files, which fair.
03:11:
(Chris Hayes)
And that Russell Vogt, architect of the notorious Project 2025 and the head of Trump's Office of Management and Budget, is a, quote, right wing absolute zealot, which also fair.
03:21:
(Chris Hayes)
Wiles also said that Donald Trump, a man who does not drink, has, quote, an alcoholic's personality, adding he operates with a view there is nothing he can't do.
03:29:
(Chris Hayes)
Nothing, zero, nothing.
03:31:
(Chris Hayes)
Trump is in the Epstein files and flew on Epstein's plane, this source conceded, adding, quote, they were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever.
03:38:
(Chris Hayes)
I know it's a passe word, but sort of young, single playboys together.
03:41:
(Chris Hayes)
That's Susie Wiles.
03:43:
(Chris Hayes)
And again, these are not background quotes.
03:45:
(Chris Hayes)
They're not for some disgruntled ex-assistant in the West Wing.
03:48:
(Chris Hayes)
These are the on-the-record quotes from arguably the most powerful woman in America, Susie Wiles.
03:54:
(Chris Hayes)
A woman Trump seems to love so much, he's given her a special nickname.
03:59:
(Donald Trump)
So Susie Trump, do you know Susie Trump?
04:03:
(Donald Trump)
Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles, Susie Trump.
04:06:
(Donald Trump)
She's the great chief of staff.
04:08:
(Donald Trump)
Where's Susie?
04:11:
(Donald Trump)
Susie, come on, Susie.
04:14:
(Donald Trump)
Look at Susie, Susie's the greatest.
04:17:
(Chris Hayes)
Turns out Wiles has been speaking very candidly to a Vanity Fair reporter on all kinds of issues for the entire year.
04:23:
(Chris Hayes)
And today the magazine published the results, a two-part profile of Wiles, accompanied by a photo spread of her flanked by other top White House officials striking a glamorous, powerful pose.
04:35:
(Chris Hayes)
The whole thing was reminiscent of a Vanity Fair photo spread of another Republican administration waging illegal wars and wrecking the economy.
04:43:
(Chris Hayes)
It seems like the Trump officials thought they were going to look chic and fashionable and in command.
04:47:
(Chris Hayes)
In addition to the group photos, there were individual glamour shots for J.D.
04:51:
(Chris Hayes)
Vance, as well as Trump's top advisor, Stephen Miller, Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, among others.
04:57:
(Chris Hayes)
They all participated.
04:59:
(Chris Hayes)
But now the entire Trump White House, in a coordinated message onslaught on social media, is calling that spread fake news from the radical left nonsense full of false statements.
05:08:
(Chris Hayes)
Look,
05:11:
(Chris Hayes)
all because of the incredible and, you know, damaging quotes from Wiles.
05:14:
(Chris Hayes)
Like her open admission that Trump is trying to abuse the law to go after his perceived enemies.
05:19:
(Chris Hayes)
Back in March, reporter Chris Whiprell writes, I asked Wiles, do you ever go into Trump and say, look, this is not supposed to be a retribution tour?
05:27:
(Chris Hayes)
Yes, I do, she'd reply.
05:29:
(Chris Hayes)
We have a loose agreement.
05:30:
(Chris Hayes)
The score settling will end before the first 90 days are over.
05:34:
(Chris Hayes)
Oh, really?
05:35:
(Chris Hayes)
Really?
05:36:
(Chris Hayes)
You have a loose agreement?
05:37:
(Chris Hayes)
That clearly didn't happen.
05:39:
(Chris Hayes)
So in late August, Whipple asked Wiles, remember when you said to me months ago that Trump promised to end the revenge and retribution tour after 90 days?
05:47:
(Chris Hayes)
I don't think he's on a retribution tour, she said.
05:49:
(Chris Hayes)
In some cases, it may look like retribution.
05:50:
(Chris Hayes)
There may be an element of that from time to time.
05:53:
(Chris Hayes)
And who would blame him?
05:54:
(Chris Hayes)
Not me.
05:55:
(Chris Hayes)
So all of this talk, Whipple said, about accusing Letitia James of mortgage fraud?
05:59:
(Chris Hayes)
Well, that might be the one retribution, Wiles replied.
06:03:
(Chris Hayes)
I mean, that's a remarkable thing to say, to admit that it's retribution, to admit that it's lawless, unconstitutional, that you're using selective enforcement of laws to go after your political enemies.
06:15:
(Chris Hayes)
Trump's chief of staff also revealed what his boat strikes in the Caribbean were really about.
06:19:
(Chris Hayes)
In case anyone was wondering, I don't think a lot of us are.
06:21:
(Chris Hayes)
Quote, Over lunch, Wiles told me about Trump's Venezuela strategy.
06:25:
(Chris Hayes)
He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle, and people way smarter than me on that say he will.
06:31:
(Chris Hayes)
As Whipple notes, Wiles' statement appears to contradict the administration's official stance that blowing boats is about drug interdiction, not regime change.
06:39:
(Chris Hayes)
Wiles also reveals she pressed Trump not to pardon all the January 6th rioters, that he should not pardon the most violent and brutal participants in the insurrection attempt.
06:49:
(Chris Hayes)
But then Wiles explained to the reporter, in every case of the ones Trump was looking at, in every case, they had already served more time than the sentencing guidelines would have suggested.
06:56:
(Chris Hayes)
So given that, I sort of got on board.
06:59:
(Chris Hayes)
Now, this is important here.
07:01:
(Chris Hayes)
And listen clearly.
07:03:
(Chris Hayes)
Whipple points out that's not true.
07:06:
(Chris Hayes)
According to court records, many of the January 6th rioters pardoned by Trump had received sentences that were lighter than the guidelines.
07:13:
(Chris Hayes)
But that one line from Wiles, boy, doesn't that just encapsulate the entire mentality of all the groupies and the hangers-on, all the facilitators and enablers around him in MAGA?
07:26:
(Chris Hayes)
I sort of got on board.
07:30:
(Chris Hayes)
Who cares if a guy who bashed a cop's brain in on live television gets out?
07:35:
(Chris Hayes)
Who am I to say no?
07:37:
(Chris Hayes)
Now, of course, predictably, lamely, Wiles is blasting Vanity Fair for quoting her.
07:42:
(Chris Hayes)
In an interview with the New York Times, Wiles took issue with the quote attributed to her about Elon Musk's drug use.
07:47:
(Chris Hayes)
That's ridiculous, she said.
07:48:
(Chris Hayes)
I wouldn't have said it, and I wouldn't know.
07:51:
(Chris Hayes)
But the Vanity Fair reporter, Chris Whipple, quote, played a tape for the times in which she could be heard saying it.
07:59:
(Chris Hayes)
After that, the White House changed tack, seeming to admit Wiles was quoted correctly, but claiming she wasn't quoted correctly.
08:07:
(Caroline Leavitt)
This was, unfortunately, another attempt at fake news by a reporter who was acting disingenuously and really did take the chief's words out of context.
08:19:
(Caroline Leavitt)
But I think most importantly, the bias of omission was ever present throughout this story.
08:24:
(Caroline Leavitt)
The reporter omitted all of the positive things that Susie and our team said about the president and the inner workings of the White House.
08:35:
(Chris Hayes)
Oh, bias of omission.
08:36:
(Chris Hayes)
I like that.
08:37:
(Chris Hayes)
It's a good one.
08:38:
(Chris Hayes)
Whoever workshopped that.
08:40:
(Chris Hayes)
It must be so disappointing for Levitt and all the others after posing for all the amazing photos that the reporter didn't do them a favor and write a puff piece.
08:48:
(Chris Hayes)
Maybe the White House is right.
08:48:
(Chris Hayes)
Perhaps there is some context somehow that will soften the assertions Wiles made that Trump's prosecutions are about score settling and his illegal lawless killings in Latin American Cesar about regime change, though that seems pretty unlikely.
09:01:
(Chris Hayes)
Just over this weekend, they were still coming up with new ways to show the American people just how gross and incompetent they are.
09:07:
(Chris Hayes)
From Trump's deranged bashing of a beloved film and cultural icon after his brutal murder, to botching an investigation into a mass shooting at one of America's oldest universities to their fever spinning of higher prices and economic turn to oil.
09:23:
(Chris Hayes)
Today, stocks fell on a delayed November job report that showed unemployment rising to 4.6%, its highest level in four years, and job growth anemic since the announcement of the tariffs on Liberation Day.
09:34:
(Chris Hayes)
And you'll never guess what happened.
09:35:
(Chris Hayes)
J.D.
09:36:
(Chris Hayes)
Vance blamed Joe Biden.
09:39:
(J.D. Vance)
I believe the American people are gonna reward us because the American people are smart.
09:45:
(J.D. Vance)
They know Rome wasn't built in a day.
09:46:
(J.D. Vance)
They know what Joe Biden broke is not gonna get fixed in a week.
09:50:
(J.D. Vance)
We gotta stay with it.
09:52:
(J.D. Vance)
We gotta keep on working on bringing good jobs and money back into the United States of America.
09:56:
(J.D. Vance)
And that will, it already has paid major dividends for the American people.
10:01:
(J.D. Vance)
It's gonna pay a lot more in the year to come.
10:04:
(Chris Hayes)
Rome wasn't built in a day, says the administration whose president promised he would fix the economy on day one.
10:09:
(Chris Hayes)
Everything on day one.
10:10:
(Chris Hayes)
I alone can fix it.
10:11:
(Chris Hayes)
Let me do it.
10:13:
(Chris Hayes)
So now, as you see from J.D.
10:14:
(Chris Hayes)
Vansair and you see from Caroline Leavitt and all the rest of them, these people are running around trying to, as they always do, bully their way through it.
10:22:
(Chris Hayes)
They won an election by one and a half percent and pretended they were geniuses who had figured out some eternal truth and built an unstoppable, error-defying political machine that would alter the trajectory of the American republic forever.
10:34:
(Chris Hayes)
It looks more and more like that was yet another scam sold to suckers.
10:40:
(Chris Hayes)
Miles Taylor worked as the chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump turn.
10:44:
(Chris Hayes)
Neera Tanden served under three administrations and is currently president and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
10:49:
(Chris Hayes)
And they join me now.
10:50:
(Chris Hayes)
Miles, there's a lot here to discuss, but just to take a step back, the existence of the piece and the reaction today, it is always kind of bemusing to me.
11:00:
(Chris Hayes)
These people have such venom for the fake news media and the MSM and all this stuff, the liberal news.
11:05:
(Chris Hayes)
They seek its adoration and its attention and its acceptance.
11:11:
(Chris Hayes)
And, you know, they were psyched to pose for the big glamorous Vanity Fair shot.
11:15:
(Chris Hayes)
And now they're all mad that they didn't get a big puffies.
11:19:
(Miles Taylor)
Yes, all of those things, Chris.
11:22:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, they are desperate for the approval of the fake news media that they rail against.
11:27:
(Miles Taylor)
Absolutely, totally desperate for it.
11:29:
(Miles Taylor)
I think if you were going to take these interviews that Susie Wiles did over the past 11 months, given what you said in your intro, Chris, if I was going to turn this into a novella, it would be called something like unintended confessions of criminal conspiracy.
11:43:
(Miles Taylor)
Because, you know, as she's folding laundry, as she's driving back from church, she's just sort of confessing these things to the Vanity Fair reporter like a friend, like a confidant, which suggests to me that the reporter did their job.
11:55:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, disarmed them enough to tell the truth.
11:57:
(Miles Taylor)
But in this case, the truth was...
11:59:
(Miles Taylor)
Suzy Wiles, the White House chief of staff, basically admitting to the administration's lawlessness.
12:04:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, you read that quote about her belief that Donald Trump sees himself as having no limits, zero limits, nothing whatsoever.
12:11:
(Miles Taylor)
That's a president who doesn't see the Constitution as a limitation.
12:15:
(Miles Taylor)
And as she indicated on everything from the revenge prosecutions...
12:18:
(Miles Taylor)
which are clearly lawless and vindictive, and she admitted to that, to the boat strikes, which are clearly lawless and designed for a totally separate purpose.
12:27:
(Miles Taylor)
She was sort of giving up the farm here, but all the while thinking that they were in the middle of getting this, you know, glamorous piece from Vanity Fair.
12:34:
(Miles Taylor)
So, you know, I would say this was a very penetrating look into this administration.
12:39:
(Miles Taylor)
It may not have been surprising because we know this is who they are, but for them to admit this is who they are is what's damning.
12:45:
(Chris Hayes)
Yeah, that line about there is literally nothing, zero, that he thinks he cannot do.
12:49:
(Chris Hayes)
I read that and I thought, yeah, that was how Jeffrey Epstein felt and operated.
12:53:
(Chris Hayes)
That sort of scans.
12:55:
(Chris Hayes)
Like, there is no bar on my behavior, legal, ethical, moral, or otherwise.
13:00:
(Chris Hayes)
I want to read this piece nearer because this is such a—this is, again, I kind of was—
13:06:
(Chris Hayes)
bemused by this, the like, oh, we're going to get a new Trump in the second term.
13:09:
(Chris Hayes)
This is, as his second inauguration approached, I'm quoting from the piece, Wiles was determined to show the world a new Trump.
13:16:
(Chris Hayes)
I told Hakeem Jeffries, you will see a different Donald Trump when he gets there, she recounted to me.
13:21:
(Chris Hayes)
I've not seen him throw anything.
13:22:
(Chris Hayes)
I've not seen him screen.
13:23:
(Chris Hayes)
I didn't see that really horrible behavior that people talked about that I actually experienced years ago.
13:29:
(Chris Hayes)
I guess I wonder with all this stuff, like, are these people deluding themselves?
13:32:
(Chris Hayes)
Are they trying to delude the reporter?
13:33:
(Chris Hayes)
What do you think?
13:35:
(Neera Tanden)
I mean, my takeaway from this entire piece is that Suzy Wiles is the most impotent chief of staff that I have ever heard or seen.
13:46:
(Neera Tanden)
She is describing Pam Bondi's incompetence.
13:50:
(Neera Tanden)
She's describing, you know, basically Hector's.
13:53:
(Neera Tanden)
sets incompetence with Signalgate.
13:55:
(Neera Tanden)
Yet all these people are still there.
13:56:
(Neera Tanden)
You know, she's like a passive describer of what's happening instead of you're the White House chief of staff.
14:05:
(Neera Tanden)
If a cabinet secretary or I don't know, the FBI director is ladled with conspiracy theories, your job is to actually make sure that those things work.
14:15:
(Neera Tanden)
And it's not really about you.
14:17:
(Neera Tanden)
It's making sure they work for the American people.
14:20:
(Neera Tanden)
It's just I found was fascinating about this whole piece is that, you know, it's apparently to be the chief of staff for Donald Trump means that you just let him do whatever he wants.
14:32:
(Neera Tanden)
She says, you know, there are no limits.
14:34:
(Neera Tanden)
He can do whatever he wants.
14:35:
(Neera Tanden)
And she is definitely not a limit.
14:38:
(Neera Tanden)
She's just as I mean, most importantly, it just seems like she's a person who's observing.
14:45:
(Neera Tanden)
And for all those people thinking that there are some adults somewhere, I think we've all thought that that is not the case.
14:51:
(Neera Tanden)
But when the White House chief of staff is basically looking at events and.
14:56:
(Neera Tanden)
As if she's watching a movie that she's narrating to her new best friend reporter from the laundry room.
15:03:
(Neera Tanden)
It should be deeply distressing that our government is essentially run by the people who the White House chief of staff think are incompetent.
15:14:
(Neera Tanden)
Yes, I'm kind of crazy.
15:16:
(Chris Hayes)
I want to follow up and then we'll come back to you in a second.
15:18:
(Chris Hayes)
Let me just follow up on that, you know, because there's there's one moment where, you know, we quite famously know that Todd Blanche was got was dispatched that, you know, number two Department of Justice have this interview with Glenn Maxwell.
15:28:
(Chris Hayes)
She got this incredibly favorable transfer that required a proactive waiver from the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons because she was not qualified for the minimum security prison she went to because she was a sex offender.
15:40:
(Chris Hayes)
Right.
15:41:
(Chris Hayes)
She got that.
15:42:
(Chris Hayes)
Wiles in it says, oh, yeah, we don't know how that happened.
15:45:
(Chris Hayes)
The president was real ticked off about it.
15:47:
(Chris Hayes)
It's like, wait a second.
15:48:
(Chris Hayes)
A, how stupid do you think I am?
15:50:
(Chris Hayes)
But B, even if that were the case, well, then what the hell?
15:52:
(Chris Hayes)
You try to run that down?
15:54:
(Neera Tanden)
You try to track down how that happened?
15:57:
(Neera Tanden)
A normal White House would be like, oh, look, it looks like we're giving a sweetheart deal to a sex offender.
16:03:
(Neera Tanden)
Hey, let's not look like we're doing that by not doing it.
16:06:
(Neera Tanden)
She's like, oh, I just read the news.
16:08:
(Neera Tanden)
I mean, at that point, I was like, is this just no one's telling her because they can't trust her to not tell Chris Whipple?
16:17:
(Neera Tanden)
I mean, no.
16:17:
(Neera Tanden)
thing to me was is just I mean, it's it's deeply disturbing.
16:22:
(Neera Tanden)
Miles is absolutely right.
16:23:
(Neera Tanden)
There's no limit, but no one has any limits.
16:26:
(Neera Tanden)
You know, there's no limit in any way, shape or form.
16:30:
(Neera Tanden)
She's not doing it.
16:30:
(Neera Tanden)
White House Council is not doing it.
16:32:
(Neera Tanden)
Obviously, the DOJ, she thinks is incompetent.
16:34:
(Neera Tanden)
So, you know, we're just this is a this is a plane flying with almost no pilot.
16:39:
(Chris Hayes)
And on the sort of legal constitutional grounds and some of the highest stakes stuff on this war that they're essentially ratcheting up in Venezuelan, which you referenced, I want to just read this section because it's relevant.
16:51:
(Chris Hayes)
The president posting tonight that he's announcing a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers in Venezuela, which, you know, many people pointed out blockades are acts of war.
16:59:
(Chris Hayes)
He seems to be announcing what many people—I mean, if someone announced a blockade of the U.S., you know, we know how that would go.
17:05:
(Chris Hayes)
Here's this exchange.
17:06:
(Chris Hayes)
Drug smuggling I pointed out to Wiles is not a death penalty offense, even if the president wishes it were.
17:10:
(Chris Hayes)
No, it's not.
17:11:
(Chris Hayes)
I'm not saying it is.
17:12:
(Chris Hayes)
I'm saying there's a war on drugs.
17:13:
(Chris Hayes)
It's unlike another one that we've seen.
17:15:
(Chris Hayes)
But that's what this is.
17:16:
(Chris Hayes)
Obviously, it's a war declared only by the president without any congressional approval, I said.
17:20:
(Chris Hayes)
Don't need it yet, Wiles replied.
17:22:
(Chris Hayes)
She seems to sort of give away the idea that this is regime change.
17:25:
(Chris Hayes)
And now you've got the president tonight—
17:28:
(Chris Hayes)
appearing to escalate once again.
17:31:
(Miles Taylor)
Well, this is where I've got to say that Nir is completely right.
17:34:
(Miles Taylor)
Susie Wiles is the bystander chief of staff.
17:37:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, again and again in these interviews, she shows, you know, we're doing things that push the edge of the law.
17:42:
(Miles Taylor)
And then I tell the president not to go that far, but we go that far anyway.
17:45:
(Miles Taylor)
And I get behind him.
17:46:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, she basically admits to embracing the lawlessness.
17:50:
(Miles Taylor)
The difference between the first administration I was in and this one, there's a lot of things to criticize about what we did in the first administration.
17:56:
(Miles Taylor)
But a John Kelly, my former boss, saw his job
18:00:
(Miles Taylor)
as telling the president the truth about the law.
18:03:
(Miles Taylor)
And if the president wanted to break the law, helping him not break the law.
18:07:
(Miles Taylor)
Susie Wiles appears to see her role as facilitating Donald Trump breaking the law.
18:12:
(Miles Taylor)
And that means, Chris, we have to do things like, rather than contain the lawlessness in the Oval Office, you've got to go protect people.
18:19:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, right now there are U.S. troops who, if you...
18:22:
(Miles Taylor)
Listen to the reporting seemed to be on the receiving end of a blizzard of potentially illegal orders.
18:28:
(Miles Taylor)
Yes.
18:28:
(Miles Taylor)
And they're confused.
18:29:
(Miles Taylor)
They're concerned.
18:29:
(Miles Taylor)
I mean, tonight over at Defiance.org, we launched a campaign to go provide legal support and advice to soldiers who aren't sure what to do.
18:38:
(Miles Taylor)
We shouldn't be having to do that.
18:40:
(Miles Taylor)
We shouldn't be in a position.
18:41:
(Miles Taylor)
where the president's orders are sowing so much confusion that people on the ground are questioning whether it's lawful.
18:46:
(Miles Taylor)
But that's what happens when you have bystanders like Susie Wiles at the White House who are letting the president go forward and believe he has no limits.