Vice President JD Vance brushed off a report from Vanity Fair that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles called him a "conspiracy theorist" on Tuesday.
Vance made the comments while taking questions from the press in Pennsylvania, leaning in on his conspiratorial side and suggesting Wiles didn't intend the comment to be critical.
"Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true," Vance told reporters. "Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills. You know, I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job."
"So, at least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it," he added.
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Vance went on to defend Wiles more generally, saying that she is an extremely effective chief of staff whose loyalty to President Donald Trump is guaranteed.
"I've never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go and counteract him. Or subvert his will behind the scenes. And that's what you want in a staffer. Because as much as I love Susie, the American people didn't elect any staffer. They elected the president of the United States," Vance said. "Susie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree. But I've never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States, and that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for."
Wiles herself blasted the Vanity Fair article in her own statement on social media, arguing it was "disingenuously" framed and lacked "significant context."
The article quotes Wiles as saying Vance was a conspiracy theorist and that he had begun supporting Trump out of political expediency rather than true support. She was also quoted giving frank descriptions of other White House officials, including saying Trump has "an alcoholic's personality."
"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 wrote on X Tuesday.
"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," she continued.
"The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade," she added.
