{"id":211354,"date":"2025-12-16T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T11:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/trumps-inner-circle-on-the-record-part-2-of-2\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T11:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T11:47:08","slug":"trumps-inner-circle-on-the-record-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/trumps-inner-circle-on-the-record-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Inner Circle, On the Record (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Trump\u2019s team was divided on whether Putin\u2019s goal was anything less than a complete Russian takeover of Ukraine. \u201cThe experts think that if he could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy,\u201d Wiles told me in August. But privately, Trump wasn\u2019t buying it\u2014he didn\u2019t believe Putin wanted peace. \u201cDonald Trump thinks he wants the whole country,\u201d Wiles told me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In October I asked Rubio if that was true. \u201cThere are offers on the table right now to basically stop this war at its current lines of contact, okay?\u201d he said. \u201cWhich include substantial parts of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which they\u2019ve controlled since 2014. And the Russians continue to turn it down. And so\u2026you do start to wonder, well, maybe what this guy wants is the entire country.\u201d (In Wiles\u2019s office is a photograph of Trump and Putin standing together, signed by Trump: \u201cTO SUSIE YOU ARE THE GREATEST! DONALD.\u201d)<\/p>\n<div class=\"GenericCalloutWrapper-IJXIe cA-Dnuk\" data-testid=\"GenericCallout\">\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-TKIUW EyjjJ\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed\">\n<div class=\"PullQuoteEmbedContent-sc-lixSTo imZPEE\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">Will Marco Rubio challenge Vance for the top spot on the 2028 GOP presidential ticket? His answer: \u201cIf JD Vance runs for president, he\u2019s going to be our nominee, and I\u2019ll be one of the first people to support him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">I asked Wiles about the remarkable 180-degree conversion of the secretary of state and the vice president from fierce Trump critics to high-ranking acolytes\u2014and heirs apparent. Trump has floated a Vance-Rubio GOP presidential ticket in 2028. Rubio\u2019s transformation was ideological and principled, she said: \u201cMarco was not the sort of person that would violate his principles. He just won\u2019t. And so he had to get there.\u201d By contrast, she suggested, Vance had other motivations. \u201cHis conversion came when he was running for the Senate. And I think his conversion was a little bit more, sort of political.\u201d During another visit to the White House on November 13, when I asked Vance about his conversion to Trump loyalist, he said: \u201cI realized that I actually liked him, I thought he was doing a lot of good things. And I thought that he was fundamentally the right person to save the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Will Rubio challenge Vance for the top spot on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/trump-cabinet-meetings-audition-for-2028?srsltid=AfmBOop-RIXdLfOLfBu10_yGpNB2AZgXdv7_wFDoweLgVlUpP9Ev2h4Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2028 GOP presidential ticket<\/a>? His answer: \u201cIf JD Vance runs for president, he\u2019s going to be our nominee, and I\u2019ll be one of the first people to support him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">Wiles is known for having an open-door policy. Trump sometimes comes in unannounced (\u201che apparently never did in the first administration\u201d). During lunch, no one interrupted us, and Wiles checked her phone only once. She was enjoying a rare moment of downtime. \u201cThey don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing,\u201d she said, motioning toward the Oval, and laughed out loud. After an hour, as I got up to go, I told her about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/style\/story\/obama-divorce-aniston-conspiracy-theory?srsltid=AfmBOoo4l2Q_hZygM04jUFWvq2Z2maLtAOAHtc6NuhStzVEbe9WJU6zj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">President Barack Obama<\/a>\u2019s chief Rahm Emanuel used to complain to visitors about how thankless his job was: \u201c<em>This<\/em> is nice,\u201d he said, pointing to the wood-burning fireplace, \u201cand <em>this<\/em> is nice,\u201d gesturing toward the outdoor patio. \u201cAnd everything in between <em>sucks.<\/em>\u201d Wiles replied: \u201cI don\u2019t feel that way at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"GenericCalloutWrapper-IJXIe dxpeyk\" data-testid=\"GenericCallout\">\n<aside aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"PullQuoteEmbedWrapper-sc-TKIUW EyjjJ\" data-testid=\"pullquote-embed\">\n<div class=\"PullQuoteEmbedContent-sc-lixSTo imZPEE\">\n<p class=\"paywall\">In Wiles\u2019s office is a photograph of Trump and Vladimir Putin standing together, signed by Trump: \u201cTO SUSIE YOU ARE THE GREATEST! DONALD.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">To the left of the fireplace was a freestanding video monitor: a live feed of Trump\u2019s Truth Social posts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-dropcap paywall\">The average tenure for a modern White House chief of staff is a year and a half. George W. Bush\u2019s Andrew Card holds the record at five years and three months. Wiles may yet eclipse Trump\u2019s so-far longest-lasting chief, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/topic\/john-kelly?srsltid=AfmBOop6rxA7LpGdQHJODH2IR-pF7ygepzki_rZ4NRh_yqolSurO2sm5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Kelly<\/a>, at 17 months. If she chose to quit, Wiles could make a fortune running the campaign of any number of would-be GOP nominees; though Wiles says she earned around $350,000 for her role managing Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign, she was reported to have made millions more through her consulting firm (Wiles had not replied when asked about this by the time this article went to print). When reports emerged that Biden aide Mike Donilon stood to make $8 million if his boss had stayed in the race and won, Wiles said her co\u2013campaign chair Chris LaCivita sent her a note that said, \u201cBoy, am I stupid. Why was [I] so cheap?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Wiles says she\u2019d originally planned to serve as chief for six months. \u201cI have not had a day I would describe as overwhelming, though there\u2019s plenty of frustration here. But you go to bed at night, you say your prayers, and you get up and do it again.\u201d I asked her about her health and the president\u2019s. \u201cMine is good,\u201d she said. \u201cHis is great. My kids are grown. I\u2019m divorced. This is what I do if I stay four years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/trump-susie-wiles-interview-exclusive-part-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump\u2019s team was divided on whether Putin\u2019s goal was anything less than a complete Russian takeover of Ukraine. \u201cThe experts think that if he could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy,\u201d Wiles told me in August. But privately, Trump wasn\u2019t buying it\u2014he didn\u2019t believe Putin wanted peace. \u201cDonald Trump thinks he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54,4576,644,865,1791],"class_list":{"0":"post-211354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrity","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-marco-rubio","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}