Wiles recruited Vance to help tap the brakes. “We told Donald Trump, ‘Hey, let’s not talk about tariffs today. Let’s wait until we have the team in complete unity and then we’ll do it,’ ” she said. But Trump barreled ahead, announcing sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, from 10 to 100 percent—which triggered panic in the bond market and a sell-off of stocks. Trump paused his policy for 90 days, but by that time the president’s helter-skelter levies had given rise to the TACO chant: “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
Wiles believed a middle ground on tariffs would ultimately succeed, she said, “but it’s been more painful than I expected.”
At the time this article went to press, shortly before the December holidays, a Harvard poll showed 56 percent of voters think Trump’s tariff policies have harmed the economy.
DAY 207
August 14, 2025
“National Guard mobilizes 800 troops in DC to Support Federal, Local Law Enforcement—Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital.” —US Department of War
During the summer, Trump ordered the National Guard into four Democratic-led cities, claiming the troops were needed to crack down on crime and protect federal immigration facilities. In June the president deployed some 4,000 guard troops to Los Angeles; later he sent them to Washington, describing the city’s crime rate as “out of control.” “This was like a vitamin boost of ICE, of the [National] Guard, of the Park Service police, who actually have more authority than the DC Metro Police,” Wiles said. “And the idea was to right the ship and then slowly back off. And that’s what we’re doing.”
“I don’t think there’s anybody in the world right now that could do the job that she’s doing,” Rubio said of Wiles. He called her bond with Trump “an earned trust.”
Critics denounced the deployments as unconstitutional, performative, and ineffective, and many feared Trump had another, more sinister plan up his sleeve.
Will the president use the military to suppress or even prevent voting during the midterms and beyond?
“I say it is categorically false, will not happen, it’s just wrongheaded,” she snapped.
“Do you understand where people who think that are coming from?” I asked.
“I do a little bit, but not fully. I mean, I think they hate the president. They think he’s too wrapped up in what happened in 2020.”
The president and his team were pushing almost every legal and constitutional boundary and defying courts to stop them. But would Trump obey the Supreme Court? “Do you think he will adhere to whatever the courts decide in the end?” I asked Wiles. “I do,” she replied. But Wiles made a prediction: “The smart lawyers around us think that we will be slowed down, as we already have been, but we will ultimately prevail.”
Click here to read Part 2 of 2 from Vanity Fair’s portfolio of Trump’s inner circle.
