Vanity Fair’s recent two-part profile of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles landed like a tabloid grenade — loud, messy, and designed to distract. The piece trotted out a montage of eyebrow-raising quotes and gossip about figures inside the administration, and the predictable outrage machine roared to life as if the country’s future were at stake. Conservatives should be skeptical of breathless narratives published by outlets that have spent years pushing one-sided storylines against this presidency.
Wiles reacted the way any seasoned political operative would when she read a piece that she says ripped comments from context: she called it a hit piece. The White House, from the press secretary to senior aides, rallied behind her, making clear she remains a trusted and effective leader inside the West Wing. That reaction matters more than a magazine profile that specializes in theater over governance.
Yes, Vanity Fair printed quotations that will make headlines — a colorful description of the President’s temperament, blunt takes on other officials, and even an eyebrow-raising aside about a tech CEO — but none of that changes the record of policy wins and national strength the administration has delivered. The leftist press loves to elevate gossip into scandal because it’s easier than honestly debating tariffs, borders, energy independence, and record job creation for working Americans.
The article’s author has said interviews were recorded and stands by his reporting, while Wiles and the administration insist important context was stripped away. That’s the modern media playbook: publish the salacious soundbite, refuse to publish raw context, and then double down when conservatives push back. Ask yourself which is more dangerous to our republic — a staff memo that actually harms national security, or yet another magazine chasing clicks by manufacturing chaos.
BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler called the Vanity Fair story a “nothingburger” for much of its breathless content, but she rightly flagged one passage that could explain political missteps: comments about how the Epstein files were handled. Wheeler suggested that if someone in the inner circle downplayed the base’s fury over Epstein, it would explain some strategic blindness. That’s an important takeaway for any president who wants to win hearts of hardworking Americans — your staff must understand and respect the priorities of your voters.
Here’s the real lesson conservatives should take from this debacle: personnel matters. Media stunts and hit pieces won’t weaken a movement that produces results, but a leader who surrounds himself with advisers who don’t grasp what the base cares about will make preventable mistakes. If President Trump’s 2026 team is to succeed, it will be staffed by loyal, battle-tested conservatives who know how to translate policy wins into lasting political strength.
The left will keep throwing grenades because they have nothing better than innuendo and outrage. Our job is to keep the focus where it belongs — on securing the border, rebuilding American industry, freeing workers from Big Tech chokeholds, and defending liberty. We should defend competent leaders like Susie Wiles when the media seeks to weaponize private conversations into public crises.
Finally, the American people are wiser than Vanity Fair gives them credit for. Patriots who have seen the results of bold policies will not be distracted by magazine serializations. If Wiles and other realists in the administration stay focused on delivering for everyday Americans, the media’s manufactured drama will implode under the weight of actual accomplishments and renewed conservative unity.
