Vice President JD Vance was confronted about being called a conspiracy theorist by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and indicated he’s okay with it for the most part.
Wiles told Vanity Fair that the vice president has been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade.”
She also said his evolution from a Never Trumper to MAGA devotee was “sort of political.”
The observations from Wiles were made during a series of wide-ranging interviews for a two-part feature that now has top Trump officials in cleanup mode.
Vance was asked about Wiles’ comments during his visit to Pennsylvania to promote the Trump economy.
The vice president grinned awkwardly as the question was posed, while others in the audience could be heard groaning.
Vance said he had not read the article but acknowledged being a conspiracy theorist.
“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance said.
His pro-Trump audience cheered in response. Vance went on to claim he and Wiles have publicly and privately joked about him being a conspiracy theorist for a long time.
The vice president gave three examples of conspiracy theories he believed in, including accusing Biden of wanting to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win political arguments, despite the lack of evidence to support it.
“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,” said Vance, who regularly jumps to conclusions and makes claims without citing evidence.
Vance went on to address Wiles. He praised her as a chief of staff and said she is the same person to the president’s face as she is when he is not around.
“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,” Vance said. “And that makes her the best White House chief of staff the president could ask for.”
After the Vanity Fair articles dropped, Wiles immediately scrambled to push back as other Trump staffers also jumped in to defend her.
Wiles called the feature, which was released after multiple interviews with her and other top Trump officials, a “disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history” in a rare statement posted 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…— Susie Wiles (@SusieWiles) December 16, 2025
Vance also spoke to Vanity Fair and posed for photos included in the feature. He described Wiles to Vanity Fair as a “facilitator” who works to make Trump’s vision “come to life.”
But the vice president turned on Vanity Fair during his event on Tuesday after the articles were released.
“If any of us have learned a lesson from that Vanity Fair article, I hope that the lesson is we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets,” Vance said.
It was the final question Vance answered before wrapping up his event.
He did not address Wiles’s comment that his shift to full MAGA was in part a matter of political expediency.
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