JD Vance defends Ice Maiden Susie Wiles with tortured explanation

JD Vance came to the defense of Susie Wiles after the White House chief of staff called the vice president a 'conspiracy theorist' in an explosive Vanity Fair article.

Vance gave a long-winded explanation of about conspiracy theories while speaking in Pennsylvania Tuesday - shortly after President Donald Trump also backed Wiles amid fallout over the piece. 

'Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,' he claimed. 

'Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time.'

Vance then turned the question on its head by citing a 'conspiracy theory' about about President Biden's health. 

'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,' he quipped.

He also joked that he was considered a conspiracy theorist for thinking '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.'

Vance said a conspiracy theory is 'just something that was true six months before the media admitted it.'

He then turned serious, calling Wiles 'the best White House chief of staff' Trump could ask for and saying the piece was not reflective of the person he knew.

'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,' he said. 

Vance noted that he does have 'disagreements' with Wiles but that they agree 'on much more' than they disagree. 

It was a similar tact to how Trump defended Wiles, telling the New York Post Tuesday that he wasn't offended that she said he had an 'alcoholic's personality.' 

The President said he knew what Wiles was trying to say.

He told the paper: 'No, she meant that I'm - you see, I don't drink alcohol. So everybody knows that - but I've often said that if I did, I'd have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It's a very possessive personality.' 

Wiles had told Chris Whipple, a longtime chronicler of White House chiefs of staff, that 'high-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, their personalities are exaggerated when they drink. And so I'm a little bit of an expert in big personalities.'

Wiles' late father, legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, struggled with alcoholism.

Trump's older brother died of complications associated with alcoholism, which is one of the reasons the president says he doesn't drink. 

'I've said that many times myself. I'm fortunate I'm not a drinker,' Trump told the Post. 'If I did, I could very well, because I've said that - what's the word? Not possessive - possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I've said it many times, many times before.' 

Trump didn't respond to other portions of the two-part Vanity Fair series because he hadn't seen it. 

'I didn't read it, but I don't read Vanity Fair - but she's done a fantastic job,' the President said of Wiles. 'I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided.' 

Karoline Leavitt used a similar line when she quickly addressed the controversy Tuesday afternoon on the White House driveway. 

'This is, unfortunately, another example of disingenuous reporting, where you have a reporter who took the chief of staff's words wildly out of context, did not include the context those conversations were had within and then further, I think the most egregious part of this article was the bias of omission that was clearly present,' the White House press secretary said.

She told reporters encircling her, 'You will leave out important context, leave out comments and facts.'

'Many people in this building spoke with that reporter and those comments were never included in the story, probably because it didn't push the false narrative of chaos and confusion that the reporter was clearly trying to push,' Leavitt continued. 

She headed back inside as journalists yelled and asked if she wanted Whipple to release the tapes of the interviews he conducted. 

Whipple did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail's requests for comment about the White House's response.

In the wide-ranging interview, she branded Vance a 'conspiracy theorist' and described Elon Musk as a ketamine-dependent oddball.

Wiles also ripped into Pam Bondi over the botched release of the Epstein files. 

'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 sure as hell wasn’t on her desk,' Wiles said about the attorney general.

The chief of staff also confirmed that Trump's name pops up in the files and downplays any dirt the Department of Justice has on serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with former Democratic president Bill Clinton. 

'There is no evidence,' that Clinton visited Epstein's island, Wiles said. 'The President was wrong about that.' 

The intimate details were released over many months to journalist Chris Whipple who prefaced the piece by stating: 'Most senior White House officials parse their words and speak only on background. But over many on-the-record conversations, Wiles answered almost every question I put to her.'

Despite Wiles' vast experience, she even allowed the journalist to record conversations in the most intimate of settings, including 'while she was doing her laundry in her Washington, DC, rental.'

In a frantic damage-control statement, Wiles wrote on X: '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.

'Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story.' 

She added: 'I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.'

The twin articles featured dramatic individual portraits of Trump's most trusted advisors, including Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and more.

They also featured color-coordinated group photos of the nation's top officials posing side-by-side. 

The odds of Wiles leaving the administration skyrocketed after the report was published.

On Tuesday morning, the odds that Wiles would be the first to leave the Trump Cabinet were at 4 percent; currently, the odds are 18 percent, according to Kalshi.  

She's the third most likely to leave the admin early, only behind Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, 20 percent, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 28 percent.