Global News Podcast - Trump defends chief of staff after tell-all interview

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Susie Wiles, one of the most powerful people in Donald Trump's team, gave a rare insight into the administration in a candid interview with Vanity Fair. The White House chief of staff described the president as having an "alcoholic's personality" and Vice President JD Vance as having been a "conspiracy theorist" for a decade. Wiles has now claimed the magazine disregarded "significant context" to create a "disingenuously framed hit piece". Mr Trump said he had full faith in Ms Wiles.Also: Donald Trump says he's ordered a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela, escalating his pressure campaign against President Nicolas Maduro. Funerals have begun in Australia for the victims of Sunday’s mass shooting at Bondi Beach. Nick Reiner, son of the Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, has been charged with their murder. Why having difficulty concentrating or losing personal confidence in midlife may put a person at an increased risk of dementia, according to a study. How a picture of Miss Finland sparked a row over racism and a PR crisis for the Nordic nation. The singer Lizzo is celebrating a legal victory after a judge dismissed allegations of fat-shaming made by three of her former dancers. And after six centuries of male voices, King's College Cambridge finally gets an all female choir.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, Greg Jenner here, host of Your Dead to Me. In my new family-friendly podcast series, Dead Funny History, historical figures come back to life for just about long enough to argue with me, tell us their life stories and sometimes get on my nerves. There's 15 lovely episodes to unwrap, including the life of Ramsey's the Great, Josephine Baker, and the history of football, plus much, much more.

So, this Christmas, give your ears, a treat with Dead Funny History. You can find it in the You're Dead to Me feed on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 5 o'clock GMT on Wednesday the 17th of December. President Trump steps up the pressure on Venezuela with a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers, even as the White House reels from a bombshell interview. In Australia, the first funeral. is held after the Bondi Beach massacre

and the son of the Hollywood director Rob Reiner has been charged with murdering his parents. Also in the podcast, losing confidence in yourself, difficulties coping with problems, impaired social connectedness, feeling nervous and difficulties concentrated. The signs which could mean you're at higher risk of dementia.

Susie Wiles is the first ever. female White House Chief of Staff, and she played a key role in getting Donald Trump re-elected last year. But she has now shed some unwanted light on the inner workings of the Trump administration. Vanity Fair quotes her as saying the president has an alcoholic's personality. His vice president is a conspiracy theorist, and Elon Musk is an odd duck who left her aghast with the rapid dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ms. Wiles says the article is a hit piece and lacks context. She's been backed by the president and his team.

I heard more from the BBC's Bern de Booseman in Washington. The interview was remarkably candid from a White House in particular that is quite insular in terms of at least those senior officials. The things that caught my eye the most were, A, the things she said about Donald Trump as a human being. You know, she said he has an alcoholic type personality and that he has a mindset that he can do essentially anything he puts in. his mind to, which I think is really telling into the mindset of the White House. I also was

quite interested in her remarks about J.D. Vance, which, you know, to much of the American public would sound quite critical in that J.D. Vance was once a notable critic of President Trump's and now is, of course, vice president. And, you know, she said that that was almost a political conversion, which is something that, you know, many people had speculated about in the past, but no one, certainly no one from inside that Trump team had actually outright said. She also described him as a conspiracy theorist. And then lastly, I think the comments about Elon Musk in particular, which she and the White House have pushed back on quite a bit,

him being an avowed ketamine user and that his dismantling of USAID that nobody thought that went well, that's very revealing and certainly not characteristic of some. someone like Susie Wilde, who's, you know, very rarely, really in the public eye, even if she's a very, very powerful figure in the Trump White House. Yeah. Tell us how this interview happened and what Susie Wiles has said about what's been revealed. Well, the author of the interview in Vanity Fair, he's kind of considered perhaps America's foremost expert on the chief of staff position of the White House and something of a Trump insider. He has very good connections in the Trump team. and he, you know, got them to agree to a series of interviews in Susie Wiles' case, 11 separate interviews. But the White House and Susie Wals in particular have pushed back very strongly.

She took to X and posted that her comments were taken out of context and that large portions of it weren't used. Later in the day, I was at the White House when Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt addressed reporters briefly, and she accused Vanity Fair of bias by omission. that, according to the White House, they conducted interviews that weren't used. And ultimately, in the White House's view, this piece was written and edited with the intention of painting kind of a chaotic picture of the kind of inside workings of the Trump team. So they've all been very critical of Vanity Fair, including President Trump himself. He gave an interview to the New York Post in which he backed Susie Wiles. And, you know, in the morning we saw almost the entire

cabinet simultaneously post messages of support for Susie Wiles and the work she's done not only in the Trump White House, but previously in the Trump campaign. She's been there for a very long time at his side. Although Susie Wiles hasn't denied making these comments, what do they reveal about splits within the White House itself? Well, for the 11 months since Trump has returned to the White House, there have been a lot of speculation and reporting that various people within the Trump camp, don't necessarily see eye-to-eye. So this was kind of, I would say, the clearest indication we've seen of internal splits inside the Trump White House. I mean, we've heard of this before, but mostly from anonymous sources, certainly not from the chief of staff of the

White House. Banda Bozeman in Washington. After killing at least 90 people in alleged drugboats and seizing an oil tanker, the U.S. has now stepped up its campaign against the Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. President Trump announced a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, adding that the US Armada would only get bigger. He also said he was designating the Maduro government a foreign terrorist organization. Venezuela condemned the move saying it was aimed at stealing the riches that belong to our homeland. The country has some of the world's largest oil reserves. So how would this blockade work? I asked our North America

correspondent, Peter Bowes. Most likely through a mix of the US Navy, and of course we've seen the naval vessels building up in the region in recent weeks and Coast Guard operations, although I think it's probably fair to say no detailed plan has been publicly released and the Trump administration were very unlikely to do that. So we've got to try and look between the rhetoric to some extent of what Donald Trump is threatening. He's used language like Venezuela being completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America, and he said it will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen.

Until such time as they return to the United States, all of the oil, land, and other assets that they have previously stolen from us. So in terms of what the master game plan is here, it is somewhat unclear, but it has certainly ramped up the pressure, and the level of the rhetoric, I think, is certainly exceeding heights that we've previously seen in the last few weeks. We've seen those strikes on vessels that the Trump administration says are carrying drugs to the United States, and you mentioned the oil tanker that was seized a week ago. Yeah. What's been the impacts of all this on Venezuela? The response that we've seen just in the last few minutes from Venezuela, saying that they are outraged at what Donald Trump

is essentially proposing in this message. They say the... United States intends to impose an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the riches that belong to our homeland. This is a statement from the government of Nicolas Maduro. The impact, and we've begun to see that impact already, but potentially it could get much worse, would be on the already shaky economy of Venezuela.

If this kind of blockade went ahead and the blockade of oil tankers leaving the country, the impact could be quite devastating on its economy. And does President Trump have the authority to do this? There's been some questions over certainly those attacks on those fast alleged drug boats. Yeah, a lot of questions are being asked in Washington about those attacks, about the legality of such attacks, especially those double strikes where people have been killed on a second strike of those boats. And that debate is still going on in Washington.

In terms of having the authority very much it is legally disputed, I think military action generally is understood to happen under executive authority, but a full blockade like this and the designation that he has made of Venezuela, the terrorist designation, without a clear statutory basis, again, that is raising many, many questions under international law. Peter Bowes. Prosecutors in Los Angeles say Nick Reiner, son of the Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle, will be charged with their murder. The 32-year-old was arrested after his parents were found dead at their home on Sunday.

Reagan Morris reports. Nick Reiner will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, Rob and Michelle Reiner. If convicted, he could face a life sentence or the death penalty. Addressing a news conference, the district attorney Nathan Hockman said prosecuting cases involving family members was heart-wrenching and very challenging for his team. but he said they had a duty to the victims.

Rob Reiner was a brilliant actor and director, an iconic force in our entertainment industry for decades. His wife, Michelle Singer-Riner, was an equally iconic photographer and producer. Their loss is beyond tragic, and we will commit ourselves to bringing their murderer to justice. Nick Reiner has battled addiction and homelessness and was said to have been acting erratically before the killings. The Reiner family reportedly attended a party on Saturday night

at the home of the comedian Conan O'Brien, where Nick Reiner is said to have argued with his father. Rob and Michelle Reiner were found dead on Sunday afternoon, but officials here would not say when they think the attack happened. Reagan Morris in Los Angeles, people who lose their confidence in middle age or feel overwhelmed by problems, are at a greater risk of developing dementia than those who sail through midlife unwaried.

That's according to research by University College London, looking at 6,000 people over a 25-year period. Lead author, Dr. Philip Frank, told Evan Davis about his findings. What we already know is actually that depression in midlife is a potential risk factor for dementia later in life. What we didn't know before our study is whether it's actually everyone with depression in midlife, who is at an increased risk of dementia or whether it's only people with very specific symptoms or symptom profiles. Now in midlife we assessed roughly 30 symptoms and of these 30 symptoms we found six symptoms that were strongly linked to later dementia risk. These include losing confidence in yourself, difficulties coping with problems, impaired social connectedness, also like feeling

nervous and difficulties concentrating. Is there a clear? a theory as to what is going on? What is the connection that is driving this? Our study can't really answer the question whether these symptoms are actually already early signs of dementia or independent risk factors, signaling dementia risk. However, what's important in our study is the timing really, because we assessed these symptoms two decades before dementia was diagnosed. And these symptoms are very important in their own rights. They can mean many things these people might, for example, be less likely to engage in physical activity, more likely to smoke, which can all contribute

to dementia risk over time. One wouldn't have thought, would one, that so many years before a dementia diagnosis, that there were signs there? Is that in the literature are people thinking that maybe you're beginning to feel like you're losing confidence or awareness or empathy? And that could be an early sign of dementia 20 years before the diagnosis? It just seems too far ahead of time? So it's definitely something where we see a strong link. We also looked at other dementia-related risk factors and controlled for them in our studies, and we still found that this link was still there. What was also interesting is that symptoms, which are actually very common in people with depression, such as low mood or sleep problems, these weren't related

to later dementia risk. Psychiatrist Philip Frank. Timothy Shalame has had a successful year, including an Oscar nomination for his role as Bob Dylan in a complete unknown. Now he's getting applauded for his performance in Marty Supreme, the story of a real table tennis player from the 1950s. He's been talking to our entertainment correspondent, Colin Patterson. I know it's hard to believe, but I'm telling you this game at fills stadiums overseas. Table tennis has not featured highly in movie history. There was Forrest Gump, a comedy, Balls of Fury,

Timothy Shalame in Marty Supreme. Is this a sports film? I think it starts as a sports film, but the structure of the film is really unique. It sort of takes on the structure of a heist film at some point, and then it really lands, hopefully, in a very emotional human place. And what do you plan to do if this whole dream of yours doesn't work out?

That doesn't even enter my consciousness. Maybe it should. Chalemay has already been nominated at both the Golden Globes and the Critics' Choice Awards for Playing Marty, a character based on the real-life table tennis champion, Marty Reisman. In Wembley's Empire Pool, the finals of the British table tennis championships. England's Victor Barna and the bespectacled American... Featured featured here on this British Pathy newsreel from 1949.

Right, Marty. How much do you like, Marty? I love Marty. You know, when you're in your early 20s, you're an idiot. And this movie, in large part, is about being an idiot in your early 20s. And if on top of that, you have a passion that you're singular about, you risk looking foolish in addition to being an idiot. How good are you at Table Tennis Now?

I'm good at making it look good. I got approached with this project in 2018, so that basically gave me six, seven years to prepare. In all my downtime, I would train as much as possible the responsibility in this movie, like in the Bob Dylan movie, if you were a Dylan fan or a guitar player, that that looks real to you on screen.

Similarly here, if you're a ping pong aficionado, that that looks believable to you, you know. Because you'd take the tables onto other film sets to practice. Tell us some of the films you've been practicing for this on. Basically everything in between, you know, it's starting with the first Dune. I think I had a table with me. Backhand. Backhand. Forehand. Given recent events with Netflix trying to buy Warner Brothers, it makes a change that Marty Supreme will have a wide cinema release and has not been made for.

any streaming service. Colin Patterson. Still to come in the podcast. After six centuries of male voices, King's College, Cambridge finally gets an all-female choir. Hello, Greg Jenner here, host of Your Dead to Me. In my new family-friendly podcast series, Dead Funny History, historical figures come back to life for just about long enough to argue with me,

tell us their life stories, and sometimes get on my nerves. There's 15 lovely episodes to unwrap, including the life of Ramsey's the Great, Josephine Baker, and the history of football, plus much, much more. So, this Christmas, give your ears, a treat with Dead Funny History. You can find it in the You're Dead to Me feed on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to the Global News podcast. Three days after gunman killed 15 people at a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach in Australia, the first funeral has been held in Sydney.

Hundreds of mourners gathered in a synagogue not far from the scene of the massacre to pay their respects to Rabbi Eli Schlanger. We are here. raw and devastated, crying in unbearable pain, along with the entire Jewish people and all good people across Australia and the world over in the wake of the horrific terrorist attack that was perpetrated in our city.

We mourn the loss of every single precious life. Our correspondent in Sydney, Phil Mercer, told me more about Elie Schlanger. He was born in the United Kingdom, a rabbi who had really embedded himself into the local Jewish community here in Bondi, working for a Jewish organization for the best part of 20 years. He was in his early 40s, and he leaves behind a wife and young family, including a two-month-old baby. His friends are remembering a vivacious, energetic and caring character. And that really has been born out. his value to the community by this huge crowd that has turned out here in Bondi to say farewell. We understand that the burial will take place at Rookwood Cemetery. This is about a 45-minute drive from Sydney. So this will be the first of many funerals after the attack here on Sunday, a couple due today. But once again, another day of pain for the Jewish community and for Australia as well.

Tell us more about the mood there near Bondi Beach in Sydney. We're just hearing from a former conservative federal lawmaker who is addressing the crowd. And what we've seen here since the shooting of Bondi Beach is a steady stream of political, religious and other social leaders. We've had the prime minister has been here, the leader of the opposition. And this man who's speaking at the moment is called Josh Frydenberg. He was once a senior member in a former conservative government, and he says that this is the worst loss of Jewish life anywhere in the world since the October 7 attacks. And there is a lot of criticism here of the federal government for its perceived inaction on anti-Semitism. The government itself says that it's taking the issue very, very seriously, but it is an illustration of how the political fallout from this atrocity is becoming more intense.

The attack, of course, carried out by a father and son. The father was shot dead on the day. The son has been sedated in hospital. Have police been able to question him yet? There are media reports that this suspected gunman has woken from a coma and is likely to be spoken to by the police and may well face what you would imagine would be a huge amount of charges sometime today, but we don't know.

We are waiting for information. What we do know is that his father, was shot dead by the police here at Bondi Beach and the authorities say that father and son went to the Philippines and they are denying reports they went there for military training but of course this is now part of this sweeping investigation. Phil Mercer in Sydney. Meanwhile, the local council has announced that New Year's Eve events at Bondi Beach

have been cancelled. Beauty contests have found themselves in the spotlight this year. One of the many scandals arose when Thailand hosted the Miss Universe competition and the 1996 winner called the pageant's director who had insulted Miss Mexico a despicable Chinese and made a gesture of squinting her eyes. Now a row over Miss Finland has sparked a conversation about racism against Asians in the Nordic country's reputation. Stephanie Zackerson has the story.

It began with a photo. This year's Miss Finland, Sarah Jafcha, was using her fingers to pull her face upwards, squinting at the camera. The picture was posted. by her friend with the caption having dinner with a Chinese person. The post caused outrage and the pageant winner was called childish, embarrassing and racist. Marisomi is a Finnish Japanese content creator. For me, it was really upsetting since I have also gotten the gesture to be thrown at my face.

And it was really upsetting to see someone who represents us doing the gesture and then people invalidating our feelings about it. Sarajevja said she had been robbing her temples because of a headache and wouldn't have captured the photo in that way. She said as a person with an immigrant background herself, she would never accept any kind of racism and apologise to the Asian community. Her crown and title was removed and given to this year's Miss Finland runner-up. But the scandal quickly made its way into the political arena.

Three members of the right-wing populist Finns Party, one of the parties in Finland's coalition government, posted images of themselves on social media making the same gesture, saying it was in support of Javcha, criticising the decision to strip her of her title. Finnish-Asian TikToker Gideon Harkström posted a video which drew attention to the photo scandal. The government officials do not represent everyone in Finland, and the response and the defence for Asian people in Finland has also been significant. But we cannot ignore the fact that this is our current reigning government that was democratically elected and they represent the people.

So of course we do have a huge problem in Finland that needs to be discussed. And the scandal has prompted headlines in Chinese, South Korean and Japanese media creating a PR crisis abroad. The National Airline, Finnair, said people, were leaving comments on its social media channels, warning people against travelling to Finland. Prime Minister Petri Orpo condemned the Finns party members' posts, and after a meeting on Tuesday, the chairs of the government's parliamentary group strongly criticised what they characterised as rude and inappropriate comments that were damaging Finland's reputation.

It's not the first time the coalition government has been embroiled in a racism row. Only three months ago, it swore there would be no more scandals. Whether the lawmakers will face any sanctions for their behaviour will be decided by the Finns Party later this week. Stephanie Zacherson. The American singer Lizzo has won a legal victory after a judge dismissed allegations of fat-shaming made by three of her former dancers.

But the lawsuit will continue over claims they were also subjected to sexual harassment. Lizzo has denied any wrongdoing and welcomed the ruling. as we heard from U.S. Entertainment reporter K.J. Matthews. It's really interesting on her social media. There's just video of her looking directly into the camera, saying nothing. And then underneath that, you have a story,

captions that are out there saying, basically she's still in her legal battle, but she's so happy that the fat-shaming claims against her have been officially dropped. She never fat-shamed them. And this was part of three former dancers that were, according to her, upset because they were fired, and she says they were fired because they were filming her without her knowledge.

She was on tour with these dancers a few years back, and they stopped at a strip club in Amsterdam, and they said that they were forced to interact inappropriately with some of the dancers there that were, I guess, either nude or partially dressed, and they were forced, according to them, to interact and touch them in ways that they felt uncomfortable that they did not want to do, but at least one of them is saying they felt that they had to do it to keep their jobs. And that, they said, should not have been part of their job. So that part of their allegation is moving forward. And it's really interesting because, you know, when she burst onto the scene, so many people were so happy to see her in the body positive movement space because

she was out there. She was flaunting her sexuality. And she's a rather larger girl and admitted it and said she was proud to be that size. So when she had this kind of reality show where she was looking to bring on or hire dancers that kind of embrace that kind of body positivity and weren't, you know, super skinny dancers. People really applauded that. Recently, though, people have also taken her to task because she has lost a lot of weight. She won't say how much weight she's lost. She was actually on a show recently, and it was on social media, where they, one of the hosts basically asked her, you know, how much weight have you lost? And she said she wouldn't get into that. But, you know, you have a lot of people in the body-positive space environment now saying she's lost too much weight or why has she lost weight, period.

There shouldn't have been that pressure on her. So she's really getting a lot of a backlash from different people. K.J. Matthews. For many people in Britain, it marks the start of Christmas. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has taken place at King's College, Cambridge, since 1918, and is now broadcast to millions of people around the world. The choir dates back nearly six centuries to the founding of the college by King Henry VI. And to this day, it remains male only.

But next year, King's College will have an additional all-female choir. Susie Digby is a choral conductor. what does she make of the decision? I think it's very, very good news indeed. I mean, my view is that the more undergraduates can sing while at university, the better. And really the idea which I think is so very important and so very needed is that these women will develop their own methods and good practice and they'll be supported through to their careers beyond Cambridge,

which is an incredibly important thing. Before we talk about boys' voices, which is very important in terms of the history of choral singing, not just in the UK but internationally. Can we just focus on the difference between the male choral voice and the female choral voice? I wanted to play a couple of examples, if I may, appropriately from the time of year of choirs singing Christmas carols.

This is firstly a male choir. That was King's College Male Choir. Let's hear Pembrokech College Female Choir. So, Susie, I think I can hear a difference, but you can explain what the difference is. Well, the first thing to say is they're both very beautiful, aren't they? Yeah. So you can't really make a judgment of which is more beautiful than the other. But the main difference is that an all-male choir has a huge range.

So because you can have adult male sopranos or countertenors or you're singing falsetto all the way down to the very, very low notes. So on average, you've got about 48 notes in the range of a male choir. A female choir, even with really low women, only has about two and a half octas, which is about 18 notes. So for something like a beautiful carol, like Silent Night, it works incredibly well. If you wanted to perform the Messiah or the Bachian Man Amas

or some wonderful contemporary choral work, obviously the range of a all-women's choir would limit you unless you've arranged it for female voices. Susie Digby, talking to Sean Lay. And that's all from us for now, but the Global News podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Ricardo McCarthy and produced by Paul Day and Wendy Urquhart.

Our editors, Karen Martin, I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Hello, Greg Jenner here, host of Your Dead to Me. In my new family-friendly podcast series, Dead Funny History, historical figures come back to life but just about long enough to argue with me, tell us their life stories and sometimes get on my nerves. There's 15 lovely episodes to unwrap,

including the life of Ramsey's the Great, Josephine Baker, and the history of football, plus much, much more. So this Christmas, give your ears a treat with dead funny history. You can find it in the You're Dead to Me feed on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.