‘What went wrong?’: John Roberts grills Karoline Leavitt over Susie Wiles’ Vanity Fair ‘hit piece’

WASHINGTON, DC: John Roberts of Fox News pressed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about a Vanity Fair article that featured extensive comments from Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Roberts suggested the White House appeared to have closely cooperated with Vanity Fair before the piece was published, citing numerous interviews with Wiles and portraits taken of the inner circle.

Wiles later called the story a “disingenuously framed hit piece” in which “significant context was disregarded” to “paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president.”

John Roberts presses White House over alleged cooperation with Vanity Fair

John Roberts opened the discussion with Karoline Leavitt by addressing the two-part Vanity Fair series about Susie Wiles and the president’s inner circle.

Roberts pointed to the level of cooperation suggested by the piece, noting the “numerous interviews that Susie Wiles had with the writer over the course of pretty much a year” and the professional portraits taken of the president’s inner circle, including Wiles, JD Vance, and Stephen Miller.

He concluded that “it looks like the White House was working hand in glove with Vanity Fair,” and then, quoting Wiles’s subsequent statement characterizing the story as a “disingenuously framed hit piece” in which “significant context was disregarded” to “paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president,” Roberts pressed Leavitt, asking, “What happened? What went wrong?”

Karoline Leavitt defends Susie Wiles, slams Vanity Fair report as fake news

Karoline Leavitt, in her response, immediately supported her superior, stating, “Well, look, I would just echo my boss, Susie Wiles, who is the best chief of staff in our nation’s history, working for the greatest president in our nation’s history.”

She further stated that “unfortunately, another attempt at fake news by a reporter who was acting disingenuously, and really did take the chief’s words out of context.”

Leavitt firmly aligned with Wiles’s framing of the situation, defending the chief of staff’s characterization of the reporting.

Karoline Leavitt accuses Vanity Fair reporter of bias by omission

Leavitt placed the primary blame for the article’s negative tone on what she termed the “bias of omission.”

She stated, “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.”

Leavitt reiterated Wiles’s sentiment, acknowledging that “as Susie said today, it’s deeply unfortunate that happened, but it won’t distract us from making America great again.”

Leavitt concluded by stating, “President Trump has been such a productive president and has accomplished more in 11 months than most presidents do in eight years because of his vision and his tenacity, which is executed on and facilitated by our great White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, whom I’m very proud to call a boss, and a mentor, and a friend.”