The media just handed conservatives a reminder of why the swamp still exists: Vanity Fair published a two-part profile of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles built on 11 on-the-record interviews conducted by Chris Whipple, and the piece has blown up into a full-blown Beltway feeding frenzy. The reporting itself reads like the raw material of a blockbuster — access to a powerful insider who has navigated Republican politics for decades — which makes what followed all the more striking.
Wiles responded the way any loyal, no-nonsense political professional would: she called the piece a “disingenuously framed hit piece” and the White House moved quickly to rally around their chief of staff, with allies and the president himself brushing off the selective outrage. Rather than letting the reporting stand on its own, the press corps rushed to weaponize snippets and spin a narrative of chaos inside an administration that, by every metric the administration touts, has delivered results for hardworking Americans.
Chris Whipple insists he did his job — saying every interview was recorded and that nothing in the Vanity Fair story was fabricated — but the Fox News circuit rightly pushed back on the apparent editorial choices. If Whipple truly had 11 taped interviews and an inside view, the conservative case is simple: he had the goods to write a nuanced portrait, not a scandal sheet, and the public deserved the full context instead of a hit-driven narrative.
Beyond style, the substance of the profile produced predictable fireworks: Wiles’ candid remarks about internal tensions, her description of the president’s personality, and other blunt assessments have been seized by rivals and amplified as proof of dysfunction. The piece even touched on explosive claims about outside figures that Wiles reportedly made — claims she later denied in some venues, while Whipple says he has the tapes — a murky episode that should make every fair-minded journalist ask why selective lines were used to inflame rather than inform.
Conservative commentators like Hugh Hewitt didn’t mince words, arguing that Whipple fumbled an opportunity any journalist would kill for by allowing an obvious agenda to shape the final product instead of letting the full record speak for itself. Hewitt’s critique hits at the heart of the problem: when reporters choose to stitch together a narrative instead of presenting a rounded account, they end up serving partisan outcomes, not the American people who deserve straight facts.
At the end of the day this is about accountability — of journalists to tell the whole story, and of news consumers to call out obvious bias when they see it. Susie Wiles’ quick defense and the White House’s united front should remind patriots that loyalty and results matter far more than narrative-driven hit pieces; the real story is what this administration is delivering for American families, not the media’s latest attempt to manufacture scandal.
