SusieGate — Day Two: The Gatekeeper Talks

Alright. Let’s move on to SusieGate, Day Two—and yes, believe it or not, we are already on Day Two.

Donald Trump has now responded to the explosive two-part Vanity Fair series by Chris Whipple, based on eleven interviews with his own chief of staff, Susie Wiles—a series that genuinely stunned Washington.

And Trump’s reaction?

Not what anyone expected.

Trump’s Response: “Spot the Lie”

Trump was asked by the New York Post whether he still stands by Wiles after she was quoted describing him as having an “alcoholic’s personality.”

Trump’s response was essentially:

Yes. Sounds about right.

And honestly? Of all the quotes in that sprawling Vanity Fair profile, that one is probably the least controversial.

Trump has long said he doesn’t drink precisely because he believes he has an addictive personality—shaped by watching his brother struggle with alcoholism. He’s even joked about it before.

So when Wiles describes him as having the big personality, the mood swings, the intensity—Trump doesn’t hear it as an insult. He hears it as self-aware.

That’s not the scandal.

The Real Question No One Answered

The real question is the one Caroline Leavitt never actually answered when Fox News asked her:

Why on earth was the White House cooperating so closely with Vanity Fair in the first place?

Eleven interviews.
Year-long access.
Formal photo shoots of Trump’s inner circle—Wiles, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio.

This wasn’t an ambush.
This was cooperation.

And that’s what makes this so baffling.

The Irony at the Center of SusieGate

Here’s the irony:

Susie Wiles is known as the gatekeeper.
The person who keeps random articles off Trump’s desk.
The person who limits fringe access.
The person who understands media incentives better than anyone.

And yet—she’s the one who talked.
Not once.
Not twice.
Eleven times.

That’s the mistake.

The Wagon-Circling Begins

Once the story dropped, the administration immediately circled the wagons.

Cabinet secretaries.
Senior staff.
Everyone went on the record defending Wiles.

And that told us something important very quickly:

She’s not going anywhere.

If Susie Wiles were truly on Trump’s bad side, you wouldn’t see this level of synchronized praise. In Trumpworld, you don’t defend someone unless you know it’s safe to do so.

The message was clear:
She stays.

The Recordings Change Everything

Then came the key development.

Wiles tried to claim certain quotes—especially about Elon Musk and ketamine—were ridiculous and never said.

Problem is:
According to The New York Times, the Vanity Fair author played them the recordings.

She said it.
It’s on tape.

Now—could context have been trimmed? Almost certainly.
Were things likely more conversational than the printed quotes suggest? Probably.

But that’s journalism.

And if you’re the White House chief of staff, you know better than anyone: don’t talk to Vanity Fair like it’s therapy.

What We Actually Learned About Susie Wiles

Here’s the real takeaway—one that’s getting lost in the outrage:

Susie Wiles sounds… normal.

She thinks JD Vance’s conversion was political.
She thinks Russ Vought is a hard-right zealot.
She thought mass January 6 pardons were a bad idea.
She thought Musk blowing up DOGE endangered real people.
She thought tariffs were wrong.

In other words—she thinks what a lot of people privately think.

That’s not betrayal.
That’s honesty.

The scandal isn’t what she believes.
It’s that she said it out loud to a journalist.

Why This Probably Happened

The most plausible explanation?

She thought this was a book interview, not a breaking-news exposé.

Chris Whipple isn’t just any Vanity Fair reporter—he’s the historian of White House chiefs of staff. Kushner has praised his books. Former chiefs likely encouraged her to talk to him.

She probably believed:

This would run later

After her tenure

As legacy-building material

And as time passed—with no article appearing—she got more comfortable.

Too comfortable.

Final Point

If you think people inside the Trump White House don’t privately believe some decisions are chaotic or misguided, you don’t understand modern Republican politics.

That tension exists constantly.
Sometimes you even see it leak out on camera.

SusieGate didn’t reveal chaos.

It revealed honesty—spoken in the wrong room, to the wrong person, at the wrong time.

And in Trumpworld, that’s the real sin.