Trump's Chief of Staff BASHES Entire Administration In DISASTER INTERVIEW

What this episode is about

Susie Wild, Donald Trump's former chief of staff, reveals critical insights and candid opinions about the Trump administration during a series of interviews with Vanity Fair, highlighting her participation in discussions surrounding contentious issues such as the January 6th insurrection and the controversies regarding pardons. The interviews, which have garnered significant attention for their unprecedented openness, feature notable political figures and reflect a deeper look into the inner workings of Trump's presidency.

Key takeaways

• Susie Wilds speaks! Her 11 interviews are catnip for gossip hounds; insights wrapped in reclusive enigma.
• Wilds defends pardons: Claims unproven and contradicted by FBI. Trump's soft spot for 'happen stancers' reigns.
• Retribution tour? Wilds laughs it off, yet Tish James' vendetta looms large like a sore winner.
• Elon and USAID: Wilds winces at his gutting strategies. His ketamine, her surprise. Unlikely allies?
• Ignorance is bliss? Wilds admits blind spots in aid impact. Is she the blind leading the unapologetic?

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Chris Whipple, court records, humanitarian aid, ketamine
2. 5:00 – 10:00: alcoholic personality, border patrol agent, Scalis
3. 10:00 – 15:00: congressional approval, Daetska, oil assets, Republican senators
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Article 5, binders, CIA asset, client list
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Accommodation Maxwell, anti-semitic mindset, Chris Whipple, club Fed
6. 25:00 – 28:27: Authoritarian regimes, concentration camps, fake news media, mass graves

Notable quotes from "Trump's Chief of Staff BASHES Entire Administration In DISASTER INTERVIEW"

• Her. It was focused on her, but Rubio, Vance, Miller, they all sat down with Chris Whipple who writes about chiefs of staff famously and has written a book on it and they did…

  about Chris Whipple · at 0:25

• People that were pardoned had the sentencing was on the high end, which is not true according to court records as Vanity Fair points out.

  about court records · at 2:06

• They would. the shuttering of USAD, she basically says Musk is an avowed ketamine user. she says she was initially a gas because I think anybody that pays attention to…

  about ketamine · at 4:20

• Are examples of people wrongly sort of ins snared in this process. She says it could have been an overzealous border patrol agent. I don't know. I can't understand how you make that mistake, but somebody did. I appreciate the honesty. like.

  about border patrol agent · at 5:59

• Yeah. And then the people that put like even what's his name? Scalis was pushing back well he doesn't even drink.

  about Scalis · at 6:48

• Purely regime change which we all knew which we all knew this was about seizing oil assets and you know a right-wing political agenda in Latin America. But she just says it out loud.

  about oil assets · at 12:27

• Declared only by the president, she says that they don't need congressional approval what they were doing for the boats, but attacking targets on Venezuela's mainland would…

  about congressional approval · at 13:14

• Sort of all just very ugly sort of section about Putin and Ukraine and Zilinski. She says, If we had to do it over, I wouldn't have had cameras in that meeting where Trump and…

  about Zilinski · at 14:10

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Chris Whipple — Person · 3 mentions · first at 0:30
• Susie Wild — Person · 1 mention · first at 0:01
  All right, guys. Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wild, sat down for 11 interviews with Vanity Fair. This is somebody who is notoriously reclusive.
• Scalis — Person · 1 mention · first at 6:49
• Zilinski — Person · 1 mention · first at 14:15
• Ebstein — Person · 1 mention · first at 18:00
  Let's talk about let's let's close on Ebstein here. first of all, she acts she to your point about being naive. She seems genuinely caught off guard by the attention to Epstein. She says whether he was an American CIA asset, a MSAD.
• Dan Bonino — Person · 1 mention · first at 18:27
  That's where most people were, and it was just like freaks like Cash Patel and Dan Bonino that really like kicked this up and it became like a kind of big manosphere thing.
• Damagino — Person · 1 mention · first at 18:42
  Information about it. You then are in meetings where you're deciding to put Cash Patel and Damagino in charge of this agency. she goes after Pam Bondi. She says, I think she…
• Accommodation Maxwell — Person · 1 mention · first at 20:00
  How about her saying that she and Donald Trump had no idea why Maxwell was moved. to the club Fed and that Trump was really unhappy when he found out and she's going to go if…
• BB King — Person · 1 mention
• Elon Musk — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

• The Gatekeepers — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:45
  Chris Whipple is a historian and author and documentary maker. He wrote this book, The Gatekeepers in 2017 about chiefs of staff. the entire interview, which we should get into…

Companies & orgs

• New York field office — Company · 1 mention · first at 19:07
  On her desk. And then as Vanity Fair points to Vanity Fair's own reporting about agents in the New York field office combing through the Epstein files assuming they were…
• Py America — Company · 1 mention · first at 23:11
  That say well why don't we just put BB at the Resolute desk? And we talked about this yesterday on Py America, but like there is a sort of an antisocial mindset. There's a…
• Pod Save America — Company · 1 mention · first at 27:48
  It really helps us. It helps us build the Pods Save America channel, helps us make videos like this and so many others. So, please, please, please hit subscribe, comment on this video, share this video. It genuinely is how we.
• MSAD — Company · 1 mention
• USAD — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

• ketamine — Product · 1 mention · first at 4:25
• signed photo — Product · 1 mention · first at 15:33
  She from afar thought Trump and Putin had this admiration. She has a signed photo of her and Trump. Her and of Putin and Trump in her office signed by Trump, which is a like I…
• binders — Product · 1 mention · first at 18:55
  This was the very targeted group that cared about this. First she gave them binders full of nothingness and then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her…
• Resolute desk — Product · 1 mention · first at 23:09
  Into the internet you will find things that say well why don't we just put BB at the Resolute desk? And we talked about this yesterday on Py America, but like there is a sort…

Concepts & topics

• court records — Concept · 1 mention · first at 2:10
• retribution tour — Concept · 1 mention · first at 2:50
  Piece Whipple asked Wilds do you ever go into Trump and say look this is not supposed to be a retribution tour and she's and she says yes I do we have a loose agreement that…
• USA programs — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:54
  Rebuild not the way I would do it. She also acknowledges she didn't understand the effect that slashing USA programs would have on humanitarian aid. She said, I didn't know a lot about the extent of their grant making.
• humanitarian aid — Concept · 1 mention · first at 4:56
  Also acknowledges she didn't understand the effect that slashing USA programs would have on humanitarian aid. She said, I didn't know a lot about the extent of their grant making.
• border patrol agent — Concept · 1 mention · first at 6:03
• alcoholic personality — Concept · 1 mention · first at 6:29
  Fantastic. She's great. They had asked him about she said that Trump has an alcoholic personality. I really do think that is sort of the least of the problematic parts of this.…
• oil assets — Concept · 1 mention · first at 12:31
• congressional approval — Concept · 1 mention · first at 13:16
• Republican senators — Concept · 1 mention · first at 13:39
  Well, no. There's there's been reporting that Republican senators have been and I don't know if it was real or not, but this seems like it is. That Republican senators have been saying when they get briefed that Marco says, Don't worry.
• War Powers Act — Concept · 1 mention · first at 13:59
  Authorization for the use of military force, but I bet they'll do something using the War Powers Act and go to Congress that way with a briefing or notification or something…
• Article 5 — Concept · 1 mention · first at 15:15
  Well, it's also shows why like if you're a Zalinski, you don't want to do any deal that doesn't have an article 5 like security guarantee because if that's what's going to…
• Helsinki summit — Concept · 1 mention · first at 15:57
  Struck by the number of times she sounds unbelievably naive. Like for example, she's talking about the Helsinki summit.
• CIA asset — Concept · 1 mention · first at 18:09
  Seems genuinely caught off guard by the attention to Epstein. She says whether he was an American CIA asset, a MSAD asset, whether all these rich important men went to that…
• MSAD asset — Concept · 1 mention · first at 18:09
  Seems genuinely caught off guard by the attention to Epstein. She says whether he was an American CIA asset, a MSAD asset, whether all these rich important men went to that…
• client list — Concept · 1 mention · first at 18:57
  Cared about this. First she gave them binders full of nothingness and then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her desk. There is no client list and it…
• witness list — Concept · 1 mention · first at 18:57
  Cared about this. First she gave them binders full of nothingness and then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her desk. There is no client list and it…
• manifest — Concept · 1 mention · first at 19:29
  In the file doing anything awful. but he was on the plane. He's on the manifest. They were, sort of young, single, whatever. I know it is a pass word, but sort of young single playboys together.
• club Fed — Concept · 1 mention · first at 20:00
  How about her saying that she and Donald Trump had no idea why Maxwell was moved. to the club Fed and that Trump was really unhappy when he found out and she's going to go if…
• deposed — Concept · 1 mention · first at 21:24
  Agree because they're suing. And then she also notes that he could be deposed. and she says if he would if he had to be he would be. also by the way she's she totally undercuts Trump and says there's no evidence that the Bill Clinton.
• war in Gaza — Concept · 1 mention · first at 22:14
  An overlapping block of voters who are angered by both Trump's handling of the Epste files and the war in Gaza.
• anti-semitic mindset — Concept · 1 mention · first at 23:17
  Mindset. There's a conspiratorial mindset. It does overlap with an anti-semitic mindset. Not to say criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. but in this case, you do feel like…
• Authoritarian regimes — Concept · 1 mention · first at 25:15
  On this piece was oh, this is how people who don't think they are getting into an authoritarian regime end up justifying it to themselves. if that's the case with her, maybe…
• concentration camps — Concept · 1 mention · first at 25:57
  Interviews the time goes on she's like yeah building the concentration camps created jobs and that's why he was elected.
• shovel ready jobs — Concept · 1 mention · first at 26:11
• mass graves — Concept · 1 mention · first at 26:15
  We dig mass graves and now you don't like shovel ready.
• fake news media — Concept · 1 mention · first at 26:18
  The media will never the fake news media will never give us credit.
• progressive independent media ecosystem — Concept · 1 mention · first at 27:59
  Subscribe, comment on this video, share this video. It genuinely is how we build a bigger progressive independent media ecosystem when we know the right has such a head start.
• bond market — Concept · 1 mention
• drug smuggling — Concept · 1 mention
• SECOT — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

• Daetska — Place · 1 mention · first at 14:26
  This carving up of Ukraine that experts think that if he could get the rest of Daetska that he would be happy. Donald Trump thinks he wants the whole country. Rubio sort of having the same thought like when you thought about that.
• nasty island — Place · 1 mention · first at 18:13
  He was an American CIA asset, a MSAD asset, whether all these rich important men went to that nasty island and did unforgivable things to young girls. I kind of knew it, but it's never anything I paid a bit of attention to.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 All right, guys. Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wild, sat down for 11 interviews with Vanity Fair. This is somebody who is notoriously reclusive. As noted in the article, she even sits off camera when all the other staff are on screen. But if she's going to talk to the press, she's going to do it in style. I have to say, I think it's one of the most newsworthy interviews I've ever seen in all the time I've been in politics.

0:24 She's also, by the way, it wasn't just her. It was it was it was focused on her, but Rubio, Vance, Miller, they all sat down with Chris Whipple uh who writes about chiefs of staff uh famously and has written a book on it and they did it for Vanity Fair and there was like a multiple photo shoots. Yeah. I'm really curious about the process because Chris Whipple is a is a historian and author and documentary maker. He wrote this book, The Gatekeepers in 2017 about chiefs of staff. the the entire interview, which we should get into reads like someone is speaking like they think they're off the record or it's on background and then

0:56 or it's for a book to come out years from now. But I will say as I I sat down with Chris Whipple for his book uh I was out here so it was 2013 2014 and first he's like he's a nice unassuming guy but like there's no way you would be fooled into thinking that this was like not like he he's very like I'm going to record this this is thing even even though it was for a book you know a journalist I mean

1:21 and there's the recorder right there like I don't I don't understand. So let's dive in. Uh let's talk about January 6th. Did did Susie Wilds ever ask the president, "Wait a minute. Do you really want to pardon all 1500 January 6th convicts or should we be more selective?" She then says, "I did exactly that. I am on board with people that were happen stancers or didn't do anything violent." Uh, and we certainly know every what everybody did because the FBI had done such an incredible job. Uh, and yet

1:50 setting it up. Setting the whole thing up. Insider threat. I'm just kidding. Yeah. But but like in contradiction, yes, to what Donald Trump has said about what the FBI did that day and uh she then makes the claim that oh actually the people that were pardoned had served more time, which is false.

2:05 Yeah, she's saying that even the violent people that were pardoned had the sentencing was on the high end, which is not true according according to court records as Vanity Fair points out.

2:13 But basically, she's saying here that she was outvoted on some of these violent offenders who should have been in jail, but Trump pardoned them anyway. And these claims about the FBI are false. These are all people who did exactly what the government said that they had done.

2:26 That's good. That was Yeah, there's a lot of them like that, you know, where she It's very um uh just like it's Well, it probably wasn't a good idea, but what are you going to do?

2:39 There's a number there's a number of repeatedly contradicts him. Yeah. Yeah. Then uh so in March uh the 56th day of Trump presidency according to the piece uh Whipple asked Wilds do you ever go into Trump and say look this is not supposed to be a retribution tour and she's and she says yes I do we have a loose agreement that the score settling will end before the first 90 days are over and then Whipple in August yeah well Whipple goes back in August and says uh what uh what's happening like seems certainly seems like it's retribution to go after Tish James for mortgage fraud and she says says, "Well, that might be the one retribution."

3:15 Uh, and uh, he's Whipple says, "Well, have you like questioned him about it?" She says, "Not on her. Not on her. She had half a billion dollars of his money."

3:23 She laughed, which is a way of like, "Of course he's of course she's going after Tish James." She went after his money. Uh, and then when Comey was uh uh uh uh being prosecuted, uh, Whipple questions her about that and she says, "I mean, people could think it does look vindictive." Uh, I don't think he wakes up thinking about retribution, but when there's an opportunity, he will go for it.

3:46 Jim Comey's lawyers read that and they felt like Christmas came early because they are going to take that quote and they're going to present it in court and say that this is a vindictive prosecution that the entire case should be thrown out for good.

3:56 Also, Leticia James, if if if they try for the third time with her, um, there are like there's stuff in here. There's so many court documents, I think, in the future that are going to end up having uh quotes from Vanity Fair in here. uh around ICE and deportations, around the Venezuela stuff was also very quite notable.

4:16 Uh the uh to your point about oh yeah, things didn't go the way I I'd hoped they would. Uh the shuttering of USAD, she basically says Musk is Musk is an avowed ketamine user. Uh she says she was initially a gas because I think anybody that pays attention to government and has ever paid attention to USAD believed as I did that they do very good work and that when Elon said we are doing this he was already into it and because he knew it would be horrifying to others but he decided that it was a better approach to shut it down fire everybody shut them out and then go rebuild not the way I would do it. She also acknowledges she didn't understand the effect that slashing USA programs would have on humanitarian aid. She said, "I didn't know a lot about the extent of their grant making."

5:02 I was going to say there's a lot of this where um the ignorance of the team uh really is uh comes into play here and not just Susie Wilds but a lot of them. Um, it seems like evil Steven Miller is the only one who did his homework for the four years prior and and Russ vote Russ va vote whatever the they call him. Uh, who she calls a right-wing absolute zealot. Um, but it seems like a lot of them are just like, well, Trump's going to do what Trump's going to do, and if we don't know anything about how the government works, whatever.

5:31 Yeah. The uh the same thing happens around deportation. She says, I will concede that we've got to look harder at our process for deportation. That's around the SECOT uh uh deportations. And she says, "If somebody is a known gang member who has a criminal past and you're sure and you can demonstrate it, it is probably fine then fine to send them to El Salvador or wherever, but if there's a question, I think our process has to lean toward a double check." And then they point out that you have tried to make sure there are no double checks whatsoever. She then and and that there are examples of of people wrongly sort of ins snared in this process. She says it could have been an overzealous border patrol agent. I don't know. I can't understand how you make that mistake, but somebody did. I

6:11 appreciate the honesty. I mean, like it's the cardinal sin in this White House is telling the truth and admitting when you make any mistake and making any change, and she just did it. I wonder if she can survive this with Trump. I mean, time will tell, I guess. He he just gave us a interview to the New York Post apparently where he said, "She's fantastic. She's great." They had asked him about she she said that Trump has an alcoholic personality. I really do think um that is sort of the least of the problematic parts of this. What she meant was like her father was an alcoholic and she said that alcoholics tend to have like big personalities. The alcoholism magnifies their personalities and and Donald Trump thinks that there's nothing he can't do which is sometimes what alcohol. So it's like it was that part was fine actually.

6:48 Yeah. And then the people that put like even uh what's his name? Scalis was pushing back well he doesn't even drink. Yeah. That's the point. Actually even Trump would acknowledge this. He doesn't

6:54 he did interview. I will say so the the write up in Vanity Fair started with a bunch of kind of you know fragmentaryary peacemeal quotes out of context that kind of did her dirty. Now she um goes on to uh hang herself with her own words in context later on on a bunch of issues. But yeah, the the alcoholic thing was really weird. There's a bunch of kind of like fragmented points that I thought were a touch unfair in the framing. Yeah, we'll we'll land there because I do think it's worth like stepping back about what we've learned from this because the sensational quotes, even the ones that are in context, they're important and interesting and we should talk about them. But this was also just a really helpful way of understanding how this White House works. But like on tariffs, uh it what it looked like from the outside is what happened. Uh when when Trump comes out with those tariffs and

7:40 it feels chaotic and like nobody had had it fully baked, that is because nobody had fully baked it. She says, "So much thinking out loud is what I would call it." There was a huge disagreement over over whether tariffs were a good idea. The the advisers were divided. Uh Wild told them to get on board with Trump. Uh and he said and she said, "This is where we're going to get get sorry." Wilds told them to get on board with Trump. She said, "Uh this is where we're going to get going to end up. So figure out how you can work into what he's already thinking." And they couldn't get there.

8:07 Vance is then called in uh to try to get him to not talk about tariffs today. let's wait until we have the team in unity, then we'll do it. But Trump went ahead anyway, which caused a panic in the bar market that's led him to pause for 90 days. It was legitimately Trump completely ahead of the team, a completely halfbaked economic policy. What it looked like is exactly what it was. And she even acknowledges that it was more painful than she expected. Yeah,

8:32 there's um a lot of these mistake acknowledgements would be one thing if it was a single mistake. Like she's referring to a particular deportation with the mom of Louisiana with kids with cancer. Um but it's she's acknowledging mistakes that happen on a mass scale,

8:50 whether it's deportations, whether it's the tariffs, whether it's all this other stuff. Like they are just they are wrecking balls. Trump is the wrecking ball and she just kind of like walks behind him and uh tries to channel his energy into into productive ends and but doesn't first of all doesn't really know what she's doing. Does know how to handle him well but then when she loses these fights she's kind of like yeah whatever.

9:13 Well yeah that's sort of what I got from it's the like I'm not it's like yeah I'm not saying we're not going to get our hair must a little bit like they're making huge policy choices in a chaotic and like kind of errorprone manner across the board. you know, big huge decisions and it's like, yeah, you know, it didn't go exactly the way I would have hoped. Well, a lot of people are going to die.

9:29 Yeah. I mean, I think past chiefs of staff for Donald Trump got in trouble because they tried to disagree with him and push back on him when he did things that were, I don't know, illegal or unconstitutional or immoral or unethical or bad for our national security. She seems to just give up and to the extent she fights, keep it private, which I guess maybe is a better way to keep your job, but it's not exactly uh painting her in glory in this story,

9:51 right? Like if this were this is all what's interesting about this piece is it if if you didn't know just the amount of destruction and menace that Trump was pursuing it reads like a kind of like afteraction like here's what's been working here's what's not working I'm a competent person these are all smart people all around it but there are sort of roving bands of sort of zealots and goons uh uh the one part that I thought was also worth talking about is uh what she says about whether he will run in 2028 8 and just how explicit she is about how it is He acknowledges it privately that it's Uh he he wants to he like jokes about it, knows it gets people riled up, but actually just would actually even in even even in his behind the scenes is sort of like I'm going to be done after I'm going to be done after another four years,

10:38 which he's sort of gotten to recently. But it is interesting that even privately that's what he's been saying too. Uh the

10:45 I think that I think on the 2028 front maybe the news non Susie Wilds quote in this whole thing is from Rubio who said that if JD runs he will not run and he will just support him.

10:55 Do I believe him? No. Do I think he has to say that? Absolutely. Yeah, that's true.

10:59 I don't know. It's a pretty Yeah, I guess he does have to say it. I I had the same thought too right here. It's just sort of

11:05 he couldn't even he couldn't even make it seem like there's any daylight there or hesitation. You're right. Because if then then it opens up Yeah. then it's World War II.

11:13 Yep. Right. Right. The other part that I thought was interesting is Susie Wilds just directly compares Rubio and Vance about how they be went from being such antagonist to Trump to being in his in his pocket. And she says Marco was not the sort of person that would violate his principles. He just won't. And so he had to get there. By contrast, she suggested Vance had other motivations. His com his conversion came when he was running for the Senate. And I think his conversion was a little bit more sort of political. I

11:38 I I love that because essentially what she's saying is, you know, JD's a hack so he got there faster. But like Marco Rubio went from doing events where he was saying Donald Trump's got a little dick to being the secretary of state and national security adviser 10 years later. It just took a longer amount of time and Marco realized like wait if I become national security adviser and secretary of state. I can do my little project of toppling the Venezuelan government. Oo, this sounds exciting. Like that's how we got there,

12:03 right? Yeah. The getting there I think is more like can I tell a story that isn't as political as the Vance story? Can I make it seem that way even to myself? Yep. The

12:11 I was stunned speaking of Venezuela by the her quote on that and she talked about the Trump's Venez Venezuela strategy.

12:17 Here it is. Yeah. He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle and people way smarter than me on that say that he will. So apparently this is not about drugs in any way, shape or form. This is purely regime change which we all knew which we all knew this was about seizing oil assets and you know a right-wing political agenda in Latin America. But she just says it out loud.

12:37 And she does maintain that um they are all like bad drug dealers on the boats because then she this is another like doesn't really understand government thing. She was like the undertold story is how talented the CIA is and knowing who people are. It's like n people kind of know that the CIA

12:52 Yeah. That's what they do for a living. They're pretty good at it. I mean there's a lot of stories about the CIA. Some of them are the ones where they knew who was in the boats and some of them are stories where they had no idea was in the boats.

13:00 Yep. And a lot of uh big mistakes in Latin America in particular over their history. Uh but to on the other side of this, she acknowledges that uh uh drug smulling is is not a death penalty offense. Uh she also says uh if war is declared only by the president, uh uh she says um that they don't need congressional approval what they were doing for the boats, but attacking targets on Venezuela's mainland would force Trump to get congressional approval. If you were to authorize some activity on land, then it's war. Then we'd need Congress. But Marco and Jay to some extent are up on the hill every day briefing. I

13:31 another big quote. That's a big deal. Like I don't I don't I'm sure they would just walk it back somehow, but that is not to me what they're what they're claiming.

13:37 Well, no. There's there's been reporting that Republican senators have been and I don't know if it was real or not, but this seems like it is. That Republican senators have been saying when they get briefed that Marco says, "Don't worry. We will come to you if we're going to do Lance,

13:48 right?" But that's not what certainly that's not what Trump is saying. Well, but that but that's important, right? He's threatening it right now. The threats are not meant to be carried out. I doubt they'll seek an authorization for the use of military force, but I bet they'll do something using the War Powers Act and go to Congress that way with a briefing or notification or something that that was my interpretation, but it, you know, it is a a big kind of comment for the legal case.

14:08 There's also a really kind of it's just sort of all just very ugly sort of section about Putin and and Ukraine and Zilinski. She says, "If we had to do it over, I wouldn't have had cameras in that meeting where Trump and Vance lose it on Zalinski." And there's this just this carving up of Ukraine that experts think that if he could get the rest of of Daetska that he would be happy. Uh Donald Trump thinks he wants the whole country. Rubio sort of having the same thought like when you thought about that.

14:34 Well, if Donald Trump thinks that Putin wants the whole country, that undercuts all his public comments about how Putin wants peace. And it does make you wonder, okay, so why are we forcing these guys to give up 20% of their territory to permanently limit uh the size of their military and the weapons capabilities of their military if we think long-term Vladimir Putin is going to go for the rest of Ukraine? Now, I think I think Donald Trump is right here. You just have to read Vladimir Putin's speeches. You don't need the brilliant CIA minds to tell you this.

15:02 He's like talked about how, you know, the historical links between Russia uh and Ukraine. But yeah, I mean, she sort of undercuts their entire strategy here.

15:11 Well, it's also shows why like if you're a Zalinski, you don't want to do any deal that doesn't have an article 5 like security guarantee because if that's what's going to happen, which is what he's been worried about the whole time, which is why he was yelled at in the Oval Office to bring it back to the

15:24 Yeah. Now, this the cavalier, it's also just so glib because she describes how she from afar thought Trump and and Putin had this admiration. She has a signed photo of her and Trump. Her and of of Putin and Trump in her office signed by Trump, which is a like I I it's just a what a like what an ugly photo to have signed as if it's some souvenir.

15:46 Yeah. So, this is a person who's been discussed as this uh behind the scenes makavelian political genius. And I was struck by the number of times she sounds unbelievably naive. Like for example, uh she's talking about the Helsinki summit. Watching it at a distance in Helsinki, I thought there was a real sort of friendship there or at least an admiration. But on the phone calls that we've had with Putin, it's been very mixed. Some of them have been friendly and some of them have been not. He's an evil dictator who massacres his own people. He sent There's been like a million Russian casualties in just the war on Ukraine. You think this guy is like a good dude who wants to be buddies?

16:18 What about the the kidnapping of just just the the kidnapping of children from Ukraine? This is a man that has kidnapped thousands upon thousands of children from this country. Did you guys catch the u the caption that Vanity Fair put on that picture? The signed picture of Trump and Putin. The caption is Vanity Fair Joe's uh two old friends in better times.

16:36 That's good. That's a good bit. Uh one just this is just one one thing that jumped out. Vance told me that he hopes to minimize GOP losses in 2026. I think a good midterm election for an incumbent presidency bullshitt would be to lose a dozen seats in Congress and two or three seats in the Senate. I think that it will be better than that. Um

16:53 he knows he's on the record. He wasn't confused. Yeah, but it just that what an undercutting thing for for him to say just to be just for his own benefit.

17:00 Oh, I think that's I think that is him wisely trying to lower expectations. Oh, I understand why he's doing it for his own sake. I don't think that is like that is not what the administration is saying publicly. That is not what Mike Johnson is saying publicly to vulnerable members threatening to retire. Right. Like you like there's no value to having the vice president of United States saying, "Yeah, we're going to get shellac, but not so bad." Like that's that's good for him.

17:22 That's sort of smart in hindsight. Well, the sort of it's becoming the messaging because that's like what the RNC chair said last week that they got all upset about that like yes, we're supposed to lose cuz historically we're supposed to lose, but it's Donald Trump who can help us and do better than usual. It's like that kind of

17:35 Well, of course. Yeah. But I just that's not what he he's just sort of kind of I think doing his own doing serving Sing himself here.

17:41 But again, Wild sounds naive. I mean, she says that she thought the GOP had a chance of electing the governor in New Jersey. Would they we what 15 points? It's like I thought this was a political genius who had access to polling and great data and information. Like no, you look like a if you told the president that.

17:55 Yeah. She's like he thinks I'm this fengali. It's like guess not. Uh let's talk about let's let's close on Ebstein here. Uh first of all, she acts she to your point about being naive. She seems genuinely caught off guard by the attention to Epstein. She says whether he was an American CIA asset, a MSAD asset, whether all these rich important men went to that nasty island and did unforgivable things to young girls. I mean, I kind of knew it, but it's never anything I paid a bit of attention to.

18:21 See, I think that's defensible. I think that's where most people were, and it was just like freaks like Cash Patel and and Dan Bonino that really like kicked this up and it became like a kind of big manosphere thing.

18:32 Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's right. But as you're entering office, you have all these people clamoring for information about it. You then are in meetings where you're deciding to put Cash Patel and Damagino in charge of this agency. Uh she goes after Pam Bondi. She says, "I think uh she Bondi completely whiffed on appreciating that this was the very targeted group that cared about this. First she gave them binders full of nothingness and then she said that the witness list or the client list was on her desk desk. There is no client list and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk." And then uh as uh Vanity Fair points to Vanity Fair's own reporting about agents in the New York field office combing through the Epstein files uh assuming they were looking for Trump's name and she says, "I don't know how many agents look through the things, but it was a lot. They were looking for 25 things, not one thing. One thing

19:19 potentially being Trump's name." Uh and she says that Trump is in the file and we know he is in the file and he's not in the file doing anything awful. Uh but he was on the plane. He's on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever. I know it is a pass word, but sort of young single playboys together.

19:36 Trump was like in his 50s at that time. Yeah, it's a weird thing to call a convicted pedophile playboy.

19:42 Um, yeah. I I mean, confirming that Trump was on the plane, confirming he was on the manifest.

19:48 He always says he's not on the plane. I This is really bad. I don't I don't Imagine walking into the Oval Office and having to explain this one to Donald Trump.

19:55 How about How about her saying that uh she and Donald Trump had no idea why Maxwell was moved. to the uh the club Fed and that Trump was really unhappy when he found out and she's going to go if Chris Whipple wants to know she'll go find that out for him and never go back to him on that

20:12 and that it was Blanch's idea. Yeah. Todd Blanch's idea was to interview her which is that that is really like

20:18 to interview her like not to not to move her to the We don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But she didn't say that Todd was talking.

20:22 No, she said it was his idea to interview her, right? And but so clearly he's involved in some way with this this I mean this ridiculous decision to move her to a minimum. We don't know. It seems certainly like like she's pushing it on to him that this was sort of the Todd Blanch project in some way.

20:34 Well, they also make her sound like a passive actor. The president was ticked. The president was mighty unhappy. I don't know why they moved her. Neither does the president. Well, why don't you call over and fix the problem? You're the White House chief of staff.

20:44 It's wild that she maintains that the Epstein the birthday note that the Wall Street Journal published was not Trump. He must be telling them like it's it's not me. Like he must just swear up and down that it's not him. Who knows? It it could have been like one of his people were like, "This is a funny note we're having from you. Do you want to sign it?" And then he like signs it. You know what I'm saying? Like, who knows? But like, it was his note.

21:05 Yeah. I I I saw that, too. I sort of like there's, as much as she's divulging in this, there's not a lot of equity in her saying actually he did write the note. It would be a pretty crazy thing for her to concede. And I presume she has no knowledge outside of what Trump tells her. So, whe whatever she actually what it tells her, so whatever she actually believes. Sort of a freebie to agree because they're suing. And and then she also notes that he could be deposed. and she says if he would he would if he had to be he would be. Um also by the way she's she totally undercuts Trump uh and says there's no evidence that that the Bill Clinton visits happened according to Wilds as to whe there's anything incriminating about Clinton the files. The president was wrong about that.

21:39 President was wrong that he visited the island which big admission. Uh yeah one one last note. This is one of the the the the piece parts that got pulled out where she says the vice president has been a conspiracy theorist for decade. I like that's being like sort of that is not the worst thing she says about Vance by a long mile in this piece. I actually think the part about being political and going over to Trump is a much bigger deal. I think she's saying he was part of the people that understood the kind of underworld of politics that cared about Epste. And to that point, I thought this was really interesting. Um uh that a senior White House official described the mindset of an overlapping block of voters uh who are angered by both Trump's handling of the Epste files and the war in Gaza.

22:15 It's as much as 5%. union members, the podcast crowd, the young people, the young black males. They're interested in Epstein and they are the people that are disturbed that we are cozy with Israel as we are. And she also this is this is the group of people that Wild says Vance is concerned about that she's concerned about because these are the people that are not MAGA but are potential for future Republican voters, potential Rogan people. And it was just interesting how clear like they have a group of people in their mind, these sort of apolitical, maybe anti-woke, but a conspiratorial group of people that Vance is clearly thinking about. I thought that was interesting.

22:43 I think they're right. I I think that there's definitely a group of people in that space that is probably horrified by both Jeffrey Epstein and what was happening in Gaza and they're not happy with Trump on all it. And also she mentioned that like how Trump talks about Netanyahu so often and she says quote I'm not sure he fully realizes that there's an audience here that doesn't love it.

23:02 Yeah. And she says if you dive deeply oh this is a White House source talking about this dynamic. If you dive deeply into the internet you will find things that say well why don't we just put BB at the Resolute desk? And we talked about this yesterday on Py America, but like there is a sort of an antisocial mindset. There's a conspiratorial mindset. It does overlap with an anti-semitic mindset. Not to say criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Uh uh but in this case, you do feel like that's what they're kind of thinking about this group of people. Just to just to wrap this up, there's something that Rubio says in an interview about Lyles uh that I thought capture the dynamic that we see throughout this piece, which is there's this idea that people have, I think, that was very common in the first administration, that their objective was to control the president or influence the president or even manipulate the

23:40 president because they had they had to in order to serve the national interest. Susie just takes the diametrically opposite viewpoint, which is that she is a facilitator that the American people have elected Donald Trump. Wilds says elsewhere in the piece, "I hear stories from my predecessors about these seinal moments where you have to go in and tell the president what he wants to do is unconstitutional or will cost lives." I don't have that. I'm not an enabler. I'm also not a

24:04 Okay. Yeah. Standing up for the Constitution is not It's your job. Yeah. Yeah. That's terrible. It's just terrible. You're not serving your boss well. Like, so you're not angering him in the short term, but you're allowing to do awful, unconstitutional, illegal things. Like, great work.

24:16 It's sort of the definition of an enabler. Yeah. Well, that's a revealing. when you have not enabled him because you basically have made the argument that your job is to enable him.

24:25 Show me on the doll where you enabled him. Yeah. Like like she says at one point like you know sometimes I make an argument and I lose the argument and that's it. Like okay you made the argument but if you made the argument about something that you believe is either harmful to him or the country or unconstitutional and then you just like don't push any further than you've enabled.

24:42 Right. Like it's sort of it's it's it's the idea that like the vibe is what counts, right? My vibe is I push back here and there, but I try to get things done. But that would be fine if the president was a law-abiding kind of kind of technocrat. He's not. He's a galumping maniac who doesn't care about the Constitution. You have an obligation to push back if not in his interest and in the countries,

25:03 right? Ultimately, he's the boss, but like you should have a line that you personally will not cross, a moral one, an ethical, legal one. My overall take on this piece was like, oh, this is how people who don't think they are getting into uh an authoritarian regime end up justifying it to themselves. Uh if if that's the case with her, maybe she didn't, I don't know, but like it seems like that from what we know about her is that in the 90 days thing on on the retribution is what really got it for me. She's like, well, the president and I have an agreement that after 90 days, no more retribution. And then he comes after he comes back to her after 90 days and asks the questions about James and Comey. It's like what happened to the agreement that you struck with the president that there's no more retribution because now it's like well then he just did this one and then he had to do this one then he had to do

25:44 this one so it's fine we're just going to keep going like you can see just her rationalizing and justifying everything in her own mind as the the time goes on because this is over a whole year these interviews the time goes on she's like yeah

25:57 building the concentration camps created jobs and that's why he was elected. Exactly. Well, it's funny because she talks about how

26:04 what else are we supposed to do about the afford? You guys wanted us to take care of the affordability crisis. So, we try to build some concentration camps.

26:11 Obama had shovel ready jobs. Make more housing and now you're bitching about that.

26:15 We dig mass graves and now you don't like shovel ready. The media will never the fake news media will never give us credit.

26:23 I think it's a good place to leave it. I will one last thing about all this though is because I I do think there's a lesson too about how people work with Trump and she like and and it actually goes to how much her baseline has moved as you were saying because she says how when she first was working for Trump in 2016 he like reamed her for a bad poll and was like yelling at her and yelling at her and yelling at her and she kind of just stomps him and says like I'm not going to be the kind of person that has my hair on fire. Uh if you don't want that then you don't want me and he loves it.

26:49 Got to neg him got and he called her right called her right back. Right. Like there's so many people that kind of genulect and kind of lay themselves on the ground at the feet of Donald Trump. But like she does know how to work him

27:02 as much as she chooses I guess also chooses not to do it. Uh well that's Susie Wilds. Uh mayor memory be a blessing. The last thing I standing behind her.

27:10 I do I do think she I do think that like I Yeah, it seems like she hangs on. It seems like she hangs on. Luckily this is all in print. If this was an interview on camera, I think she had real trouble. with the fact that Donald Trump has someone has to physically make him read any of this.

27:22 It's going to take some time and she has like Laura Loomer defending her and stuff like all the heinous right-wingers. So

27:28 So that's Susie Wilds, Trump's enabler. If you would like to enable independent media uh to continue to make content uh to compete with uh the right-wing on YouTube and uh to support what we're doing here uh to get this kind of information in front of more people. Please do us a favor and hit subscribe. It really helps us. It helps us build the Pods Save America channel, helps us make videos like this and so many others. So, please, please, please hit subscribe, uh, comment on this video, share this video. It genuinely is how we build a bigger uh, progressive independent media ecosystem when we know the right has such a head start.

Questions about this episode

What is "Trump's Chief of Staff BASHES Entire Administration In DISASTER INTERVIEW" about?

Susie Wild, Donald Trump's former chief of staff, reveals critical insights and candid opinions about the Trump administration during a series of interviews with Vanity Fair, highlighting her participation in discussions surrounding contentious issues such as the January 6th insurrection and the controversies regarding pardons. The interviews, which have garnered significant attention for their…

What is mentioned in this Pod Save America episode?

52 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Chris Whipple, Susie Wild, The Gatekeepers, court records, retribution tour, ketamine. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump's Chief of Staff BASHES Entire Administration In DISASTER INTERVIEW"?

The episode runs 28 min; the transcript is about 6,616 words in 90 timestamped sections.

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