MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday said President Donald Trump is “far more cruel” during his current second term than he was during his first, placing substantial blame on Susie Wiles, whom he called “the worst White House chief of staff ever.”
The “Last Word” host began with recent comments from Vice President JD Vance, who told Vanity Fair in glowing terms that Wiles doesn’t “influence the president” in order “to serve the national interest,” but solely works to “facilitate” his vision of the country, instead.
“That is a perfect description of why Susie Wiles is the worst White House chief of staff ever,” O’Donnell said about Vance’s comments. “The other four Trump White House chiefs of staff are the other four worst White House chief of staffs in history.”
He continued, “But they all ― the other ones to varying degrees ― at some point tried to steer Donald Trump away from some of his worst instincts. Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is far more cruel and inhumane than anything Donald Trump did in his first four years in the White House.”
Wiles made several shocking statements to reporter Chris Whipple for recent Vanity Fair articles, including that the non-drinking president has “an alcoholic’s personality” and fully operates on a worldview that “there’s nothing he can’t do” while in power.
“And according to JD Vance, we have Susie Wiles to thank for that because she does not believe she should, quote, ‘serve the national interest,’” O’Donnell said. “She believes her job is to make Donald Trump’s deeply perverse vision come to life every day.”
He noted Wiles is “choosing to do that” for someone she described as having “an alcoholic’s personality.” Wiles has since claimed that Vanity Fair intentionally misconstrued her comments to paint a “negative narrative” about Trump that she never intended.
O’Donnell added, “Susie Wile’s breathtaking incompetence has been on display every day of the Trump administration, but she goes to a new level of incompetence in statements that she made to Chris Whipple on tape that she cannot now refute and are the most harmful things ever said publicly about a president by that president’s White House chief of staff.”
Wiles also seemingly tried to compliment Trump by telling Whipple that she hasn’t seen him “throw anything” or “scream” at anyone during his second term, adding that these were things she “actually experienced” during his first foray into national politics.
O’Donnell took those comments to task and said, “Imagine being so dim that you think you can say something like that to a reporter who’s taking notes and recording what you’re saying and he’s going to publish it.”
He argued further that Wiles “never” tells Trump about laws “he might be violating” and “never even attempted” to stop Trump from falsely claiming that other nations, rather than American consumers themselves, are footing the bill for his steep international tariffs.
Wiles also told Whipple she was “initially aghast” when Trump donor Elon Musk helped gut the U.S. Agency for International Development, as she believed USAID did “very good work” in distributing humanitarian aid, only to be convinced otherwise during her time with the administration.
O’Donnell asserted that Wiles’ primary goal is serving Trump, “no matter how sick and perverse” his plans are, and concluded: “It would be nice to think there are people way smarter than Susie Wiles working for Donald Trump, but there is no evidence of that.”
