00:47 Chris Hayes Tonight on All In. 00:49 Donald Trump Do you know Susie Trump? 00:52 Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles. 00:55 Chris Hayes From new Epstein revelations to dirt on Bondi, Vance, Musk, and more, Donald Trump's chief of staff spills the tea with Vanity Fair. 01:04 Soundbite Portraits were taken of his inner circle. 01:06 It looks like the White House was working hand in glove with Vanity Fair. 01:11 Chris Hayes Tonight, the wild fallout for a struggling president. 01:14 Then... 01:15 insulting someone who's just been murdered. 01:18 It's so hateful and vile. 01:21 The loud and growing backlash, the president's degradation of a cultural icon. 01:26 Plus, his House Republican leadership will not allow a vote. 01:32 Donald Trump It is idiotic and shameful. 01:37 Chris Hayes Jamie Raskin on the Republican decision to let health care premiums skyrocket. 01:41 And in Rhode Island with a mass shooting suspect still at large and a community in fear, the FBI director's PR tour rolls on. 01:50 Soundbite We are so excited to be joined by Cash and his beautiful girlfriend, Alexis. 01:56 Chris Hayes And All In starts right now. 02:03 Good evening from New York. 02:04 I'm Chris Hayes. 02:05 Political gravity is rapidly pulling Donald Trump and his administration back to Earth. 02:11 They are flailing, frankly, in ways that feels deeply, I would say, almost comfortingly familiar. 02:17 They're unpopular. 02:18 They're losing political capital. 02:19 And they also seem to know it. 02:21 And in that way, you might say all unhappy administrations are the same, because when things go bad, staffers start to go at each other's throats. 02:29 And the release today of a huge two-part Vanity Fair piece with a top advisement president has set the administration into panic mode. 02:37 Just listen to these quotes from the president's own handbook chief of staff, Susie Wiles. 02:42 Vice President J.D. 02:42 Vance has been, quote, a conspiracy theorist for a decade, adding that Vance's conversion from Never Trump to MAGA cheerleader was never principled, but, quote, sort of political. 02:52 Wiles said that Doge architect Elon Musk was an odd, odd duck and an avowed ketamine user. 02:58 When asked about one of Musk's tweets demonizing public sector workers, she replied, quote, I think that's when he's microdosing. 03:05 Wiles also added that Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, quote, completely whiffed on the release of the Epstein files, which fair. 03:11 And that Russell Vogt, architect of the notorious Project 2025 and the head of Trump's Office of Management and Budget, is a, quote, right wing absolute zealot, which also fair. 03:21 Wiles also said that Donald Trump, a man who does not drink, has, quote, an alcoholic's personality, adding he operates with a view there is nothing he can't do. 03:29 Nothing, zero, nothing. 03:31 Trump is in the Epstein files and flew on Epstein's plane, this source conceded, adding, quote, they were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever. 03:38 I know it's a passe word, but sort of young, single playboys together. 03:41 That's Susie Wiles. 03:43 And again, these are not background quotes. 03:45 They're not for some disgruntled ex-assistant in the West Wing. 03:48 These are the on-the-record quotes from arguably the most powerful woman in America, Susie Wiles. 03:54 A woman Trump seems to love so much, he's given her a special nickname. 03:59 Donald Trump So Susie Trump, do you know Susie Trump? 04:03 Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles, Susie Trump. 04:06 She's the great chief of staff. 04:08 Where's Susie? 04:11 Susie, come on, Susie. 04:14 Look at Susie, Susie's the greatest. 04:17 Chris Hayes Turns out Wiles has been speaking very candidly to a Vanity Fair reporter on all kinds of issues for the entire year. 04:23 And today the magazine published the results, a two-part profile of Wiles, accompanied by a photo spread of her flanked by other top White House officials striking a glamorous, powerful pose. 04:35 The whole thing was reminiscent of a Vanity Fair photo spread of another Republican administration waging illegal wars and wrecking the economy. 04:43 It seems like the Trump officials thought they were going to look chic and fashionable and in command. 04:47 In addition to the group photos, there were individual glamour shots for J.D. 04:51 Vance, as well as Trump's top advisor, Stephen Miller, Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, among others. 04:57 They all participated. 04:59 But now the entire Trump White House, in a coordinated message onslaught on social media, is calling that spread fake news from the radical left nonsense full of false statements. 05:08 Look, 05:11 all because of the incredible and, you know, damaging quotes from Wiles. 05:14 Like her open admission that Trump is trying to abuse the law to go after his perceived enemies. 05:19 Back in March, reporter Chris Whiprell writes, I asked Wiles, do you ever go into Trump and say, look, this is not supposed to be a retribution tour? 05:27 Yes, I do, she'd reply. 05:29 We have a loose agreement. 05:30 The score settling will end before the first 90 days are over. 05:34 Oh, really? 05:35 Really? 05:36 You have a loose agreement? 05:37 That clearly didn't happen. 05:39 So in late August, Whipple asked Wiles, remember when you said to me months ago that Trump promised to end the revenge and retribution tour after 90 days? 05:47 I don't think he's on a retribution tour, she said. 05:49 In some cases, it may look like retribution. 05:50 There may be an element of that from time to time. 05:53 And who would blame him? 05:54 Not me. 05:55 So all of this talk, Whipple said, about accusing Letitia James of mortgage fraud? 05:59 Well, that might be the one retribution, Wiles replied. 06:03 I mean, that's a remarkable thing to say, to admit that it's retribution, to admit that it's lawless, unconstitutional, that you're using selective enforcement of laws to go after your political enemies. 06:15 Trump's chief of staff also revealed what his boat strikes in the Caribbean were really about. 06:19 In case anyone was wondering, I don't think a lot of us are. 06:21 Quote, Over lunch, Wiles told me about Trump's Venezuela strategy. 06:25 He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle, and people way smarter than me on that say he will. 06:31 As Whipple notes, Wiles' statement appears to contradict the administration's official stance that blowing boats is about drug interdiction, not regime change. 06:39 Wiles also reveals she pressed Trump not to pardon all the January 6th rioters, that he should not pardon the most violent and brutal participants in the insurrection attempt. 06:49 But then Wiles explained to the reporter, in every case of the ones Trump was looking at, in every case, they had already served more time than the sentencing guidelines would have suggested. 06:56 So given that, I sort of got on board. 06:59 Now, this is important here. 07:01 And listen clearly. 07:03 Whipple points out that's not true. 07:06 According to court records, many of the January 6th rioters pardoned by Trump had received sentences that were lighter than the guidelines. 07:13 But that one line from Wiles, boy, doesn't that just encapsulate the entire mentality of all the groupies and the hangers-on, all the facilitators and enablers around him in MAGA? 07:26 I sort of got on board. 07:30 Who cares if a guy who bashed a cop's brain in on live television gets out? 07:35 Who am I to say no? 07:37 Now, of course, predictably, lamely, Wiles is blasting Vanity Fair for quoting her. 07:42 In an interview with the New York Times, Wiles took issue with the quote attributed to her about Elon Musk's drug use. 07:47 That's ridiculous, she said. 07:48 I wouldn't have said it, and I wouldn't know. 07:51 But the Vanity Fair reporter, Chris Whipple, quote, played a tape for the times in which she could be heard saying it. 07:59 After that, the White House changed tack, seeming to admit Wiles was quoted correctly, but claiming she wasn't quoted correctly. 08:07 Caroline Leavitt This was, unfortunately, another attempt at fake news by a reporter who was acting disingenuously and really did take the chief's words out of context. 08:19 But I think most importantly, the bias of omission was ever present throughout this story. 08:24 The reporter omitted all of the positive things that Susie and our team said about the president and the inner workings of the White House. 08:35 Chris Hayes Oh, bias of omission. 08:36 I like that. 08:37 It's a good one. 08:38 Whoever workshopped that. 08:40 It must be so disappointing for Levitt and all the others after posing for all the amazing photos that the reporter didn't do them a favor and write a puff piece. 08:48 Maybe the White House is right. 08:48 Perhaps there is some context somehow that will soften the assertions Wiles made that Trump's prosecutions are about score settling and his illegal lawless killings in Latin American Cesar about regime change, though that seems pretty unlikely. 09:01 Just over this weekend, they were still coming up with new ways to show the American people just how gross and incompetent they are. 09:07 From Trump's deranged bashing of a beloved film and cultural icon after his brutal murder, to botching an investigation into a mass shooting at one of America's oldest universities to their fever spinning of higher prices and economic turn to oil. 09:23 Today, stocks fell on a delayed November job report that showed unemployment rising to 4.6%, its highest level in four years, and job growth anemic since the announcement of the tariffs on Liberation Day. 09:34 And you'll never guess what happened. 09:35 J.D. 09:36 Vance blamed Joe Biden. 09:39 J.D. Vance I believe the American people are gonna reward us because the American people are smart. 09:45 They know Rome wasn't built in a day. 09:46 They know what Joe Biden broke is not gonna get fixed in a week. 09:50 We gotta stay with it. 09:52 We gotta keep on working on bringing good jobs and money back into the United States of America. 09:56 And that will, it already has paid major dividends for the American people. 10:01 It's gonna pay a lot more in the year to come. 10:04 Chris Hayes Rome wasn't built in a day, says the administration whose president promised he would fix the economy on day one. 10:09 Everything on day one. 10:10 I alone can fix it. 10:11 Let me do it. 10:13 So now, as you see from J.D. 10:14 Vansair and you see from Caroline Leavitt and all the rest of them, these people are running around trying to, as they always do, bully their way through it. 10:22 They won an election by one and a half percent and pretended they were geniuses who had figured out some eternal truth and built an unstoppable, error-defying political machine that would alter the trajectory of the American republic forever. 10:34 It looks more and more like that was yet another scam sold to suckers. 10:40 Miles Taylor worked as the chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security during the first Trump turn. 10:44 Neera Tanden served under three administrations and is currently president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. 10:49 And they join me now. 10:50 Miles, there's a lot here to discuss, but just to take a step back, the existence of the piece and the reaction today, it is always kind of bemusing to me. 11:00 These people have such venom for the fake news media and the MSM and all this stuff, the liberal news. 11:05 They seek its adoration and its attention and its acceptance. 11:11 And, you know, they were psyched to pose for the big glamorous Vanity Fair shot. 11:15 And now they're all mad that they didn't get a big puffies. 11:19 Miles Taylor Yes, all of those things, Chris. 11:22 I mean, they are desperate for the approval of the fake news media that they rail against. 11:27 Absolutely, totally desperate for it. 11:29 I think if you were going to take these interviews that Susie Wiles did over the past 11 months, given what you said in your intro, Chris, if I was going to turn this into a novella, it would be called something like unintended confessions of criminal conspiracy. 11:43 Because, you know, as she's folding laundry, as she's driving back from church, she's just sort of confessing these things to the Vanity Fair reporter like a friend, like a confidant, which suggests to me that the reporter did their job. 11:55 I mean, disarmed them enough to tell the truth. 11:57 But in this case, the truth was... 11:59 Suzy Wiles, the White House chief of staff, basically admitting to the administration's lawlessness. 12:04 I mean, you read that quote about her belief that Donald Trump sees himself as having no limits, zero limits, nothing whatsoever. 12:11 That's a president who doesn't see the Constitution as a limitation. 12:15 And as she indicated on everything from the revenge prosecutions... 12:18 which are clearly lawless and vindictive, and she admitted to that, to the boat strikes, which are clearly lawless and designed for a totally separate purpose. 12:27 She was sort of giving up the farm here, but all the while thinking that they were in the middle of getting this, you know, glamorous piece from Vanity Fair. 12:34 So, you know, I would say this was a very penetrating look into this administration. 12:39 It may not have been surprising because we know this is who they are, but for them to admit this is who they are is what's damning. 12:45 Chris Hayes Yeah, that line about there is literally nothing, zero, that he thinks he cannot do. 12:49 I read that and I thought, yeah, that was how Jeffrey Epstein felt and operated. 12:53 That sort of scans. 12:55 Like, there is no bar on my behavior, legal, ethical, moral, or otherwise. 13:00 I want to read this piece nearer because this is such a—this is, again, I kind of was— 13:06 bemused by this, the like, oh, we're going to get a new Trump in the second term. 13:09 This is, as his second inauguration approached, I'm quoting from the piece, Wiles was determined to show the world a new Trump. 13:16 I told Hakeem Jeffries, you will see a different Donald Trump when he gets there, she recounted to me. 13:21 I've not seen him throw anything. 13:22 I've not seen him screen. 13:23 I didn't see that really horrible behavior that people talked about that I actually experienced years ago. 13:29 I guess I wonder with all this stuff, like, are these people deluding themselves? 13:32 Are they trying to delude the reporter? 13:33 What do you think? 13:35 Neera Tanden I mean, my takeaway from this entire piece is that Suzy Wiles is the most impotent chief of staff that I have ever heard or seen. 13:46 She is describing Pam Bondi's incompetence. 13:50 She's describing, you know, basically Hector's. 13:53 sets incompetence with Signalgate. 13:55 Yet all these people are still there. 13:56 You know, she's like a passive describer of what's happening instead of you're the White House chief of staff. 14:05 If a cabinet secretary or I don't know, the FBI director is ladled with conspiracy theories, your job is to actually make sure that those things work. 14:15 And it's not really about you. 14:17 It's making sure they work for the American people. 14:20 It's just I found was fascinating about this whole piece is that, you know, it's apparently to be the chief of staff for Donald Trump means that you just let him do whatever he wants. 14:32 She says, you know, there are no limits. 14:34 He can do whatever he wants. 14:35 And she is definitely not a limit. 14:38 She's just as I mean, most importantly, it just seems like she's a person who's observing. 14:45 And for all those people thinking that there are some adults somewhere, I think we've all thought that that is not the case. 14:51 But when the White House chief of staff is basically looking at events and. 14:56 As if she's watching a movie that she's narrating to her new best friend reporter from the laundry room. 15:03 It should be deeply distressing that our government is essentially run by the people who the White House chief of staff think are incompetent. 15:14 Yes, I'm kind of crazy. 15:16 Chris Hayes I want to follow up and then we'll come back to you in a second. 15:18 Let me just follow up on that, you know, because there's there's one moment where, you know, we quite famously know that Todd Blanche was got was dispatched that, you know, number two Department of Justice have this interview with Glenn Maxwell. 15:28 She got this incredibly favorable transfer that required a proactive waiver from the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons because she was not qualified for the minimum security prison she went to because she was a sex offender. 15:40 Right. 15:41 She got that. 15:42 Wiles in it says, oh, yeah, we don't know how that happened. 15:45 The president was real ticked off about it. 15:47 It's like, wait a second. 15:48 A, how stupid do you think I am? 15:50 But B, even if that were the case, well, then what the hell? 15:52 You try to run that down? 15:54 Neera Tanden You try to track down how that happened? 15:57 A normal White House would be like, oh, look, it looks like we're giving a sweetheart deal to a sex offender. 16:03 Hey, let's not look like we're doing that by not doing it. 16:06 She's like, oh, I just read the news. 16:08 I mean, at that point, I was like, is this just no one's telling her because they can't trust her to not tell Chris Whipple? 16:17 I mean, no. 16:17 thing to me was is just I mean, it's it's deeply disturbing. 16:22 Miles is absolutely right. 16:23 There's no limit, but no one has any limits. 16:26 You know, there's no limit in any way, shape or form. 16:30 She's not doing it. 16:30 White House Council is not doing it. 16:32 Obviously, the DOJ, she thinks is incompetent. 16:34 So, you know, we're just this is a this is a plane flying with almost no pilot. 16:39 Chris Hayes And on the sort of legal constitutional grounds and some of the highest stakes stuff on this war that they're essentially ratcheting up in Venezuelan, which you referenced, I want to just read this section because it's relevant. 16:51 The president posting tonight that he's announcing a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers in Venezuela, which, you know, many people pointed out blockades are acts of war. 16:59 He seems to be announcing what many people—I mean, if someone announced a blockade of the U.S., you know, we know how that would go. 17:05 Here's this exchange. 17:06 Drug smuggling I pointed out to Wiles is not a death penalty offense, even if the president wishes it were. 17:10 No, it's not. 17:11 I'm not saying it is. 17:12 I'm saying there's a war on drugs. 17:13 It's unlike another one that we've seen. 17:15 But that's what this is. 17:16 Obviously, it's a war declared only by the president without any congressional approval, I said. 17:20 Don't need it yet, Wiles replied. 17:22 She seems to sort of give away the idea that this is regime change. 17:25 And now you've got the president tonight— 17:28 appearing to escalate once again. 17:31 Miles Taylor Well, this is where I've got to say that Nir is completely right. 17:34 Susie Wiles is the bystander chief of staff. 17:37 I mean, again and again in these interviews, she shows, you know, we're doing things that push the edge of the law. 17:42 And then I tell the president not to go that far, but we go that far anyway. 17:45 And I get behind him. 17:46 I mean, she basically admits to embracing the lawlessness. 17:50 The difference between the first administration I was in and this one, there's a lot of things to criticize about what we did in the first administration. 17:56 But a John Kelly, my former boss, saw his job 18:00 as telling the president the truth about the law. 18:03 And if the president wanted to break the law, helping him not break the law. 18:07 Susie Wiles appears to see her role as facilitating Donald Trump breaking the law. 18:12 And that means, Chris, we have to do things like, rather than contain the lawlessness in the Oval Office, you've got to go protect people. 18:19 I mean, right now there are U.S. troops who, if you... 18:22 Listen to the reporting seemed to be on the receiving end of a blizzard of potentially illegal orders. 18:28 Yes. 18:28 And they're confused. 18:29 They're concerned. 18:29 I mean, tonight over at Defiance.org, we launched a campaign to go provide legal support and advice to soldiers who aren't sure what to do. 18:38 We shouldn't be having to do that. 18:40 We shouldn't be in a position. 18:41 where the president's orders are sowing so much confusion that people on the ground are questioning whether it's lawful. 18:46 But that's what happens when you have bystanders like Susie Wiles at the White House who are letting the president go forward and believe he has no limits.