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Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple praised President Donald Trump’s White House on Wednesday for being more unguarded and open to the press than the previous administration.
Vanity Fair published a viral report about a series of interviews with Trump’s White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. In the interview, Wiles said Trump "has an alcoholic’s personality" and "operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do." She also argued that Vice President JD Vance was a conspiracy theorist who had begun supporting Trump out of political expediency rather than true support.
Some, like White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, dismissed Whipple's reporting, arguing he had been disingenuous and committed lies of omission.
Whipple spoke on MS NOW’s "Morning Joe" to refute the White House’s response.
"Here’s a rule of thumb for young journalists, when your subject starts talking about ‘context’ and being ‘disingenuous’ and ‘framing,’ you know you’ve done something right," he said. "The reason they’re not talking about the substance of the piece, or any of the quotations in the piece, is because they know full well that every word is on tape."
Vanity Fair's Chris Whipple defended his reporting of his interviews with Susie Wiles, praising the Trump White House for being more transparent than President Joe Biden's. ( Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images)
However, he did offer one particular bit of praise for the current administration.
"I spoke to Susie Wiles 11 times, 11 in-depth interviews over nearly a year. And what was remarkable about it, and she deserves tremendous credit for it. She was freewheeling. She was unguarded. She was unlike any other senior White House official I’ve ever encountered," he said. "She was on the record almost all the time. You know, I wrote a book about the Biden White House, and everybody was on deep background all the time. Quite the contrary here."
He then noted that multiple figures the interviews discussed have confirmed that what Wiles said about them was somewhat true.
"How often do you get a fact-check – a confirmation from Donald Trump, who admitted that he has an ‘alcoholic personality.’ Apparently he wears it as a badge of honor. JD Vance said he’s a conspiracy theorist, he just believes in conspiracies that are true," Whipple said. "Check and check."
He claimed further that everybody he interviewed and photographed knew what they were in for.
Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, during a roundtable in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"It was crystal clear from the get-go. That and to my surprise, frankly, as I was saying before, senior White House officials never do this, but Susie was absolutely on board from the beginning," he said. "And by the way, when I told her, ‘Hey, guess what, Vanity Fair wants to publish the piece,’ she said, ‘Fantastic, congratulations.’ So look, everybody was on board. Everybody knew the drill."
Wiles had made a stir when she publicly objected to how the interview was written.
"The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history," Wiles said in a social media post after the article was initially published. "Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team."
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President Donald Trump is often compared with former President Joe Biden, with the former being praised as far more transparent and willing to speak in unscripted talks with the press. (Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital reached out to former President Biden and did not receive an immediate response.
Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].
