As the Trump administration continues to slam Vanity Fair’s framing and context of its interviews with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, “The View” hosts are looking at the feature a bit differently. To the ABC hosts’ eyes, Wiles was actually incredibly intentional with what she said.
On Tuesday, Vanity Fair released a two-part profile of Trump’s cabinet, led largely by interviews with Wiles. In it, Wiles said the president has the personality of an alcoholic, called JD Vance’s pivot to being a Trump acolyte politically motivated, called Elon Musk an “avowed” ketamine user, and more. She also criticized policy moves Trump has made, and that’s what caused host Alyssa Farah Griffin to surmise Wiles was “intentional in this.”
“I think she wanted to put on the record some things she disagreed with,” Farah Griffin said. “She criticized the tariffs, she basically explained they shouldn’t have gone the way they did. She criticized cutting USAID, which gutted American soft power, and the handling of the Epstein files.”
Farah Griffin also latched onto Wiles’ criticisms of Vance, especially in contrast to how Wiles spoke about Marco Rubio. To the ABC host, that was Wiles signaling her choice in the future post-Trump.
“I’m looking at 2028, and Susie Wiles, the most important Republican political operative in America, is squarely Team Rubio,” Farah Griffin said.
Hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin agreed that the profile realistically probably doesn’t bother trump “in the least,” with Hostin adding that the interview was self-motivated.
“I think this was very much about preserving her legacy, and preserving her position, because, by all accounts, she is a serious person in a deeply unserious administration,” Hostin said. “I think in preserving her legacy and preserving her position in this way, she can have a future in politics.”
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg disagreed a bit, arguing that Wiles was actually just trying to let the world know “that there is an adult in the room” and that she’s reining in Trump and his whims.
“See, I think it was strategic in a different way. I think she’s trying to help him clean up his act,” Whoopi said.
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
