The White House isn’t just the home of the sitting president of the United States—it’s also known as the people’s house, a symbol of democracy at work. Vanity Fair‘s Chris Whipple took readers inside the building and the inner workings of a half-dozen of Donald Trump‘s closest advisors, interviewing chief of staff Susie Wiles several times throughout the first months of Trump’s second term, and speaking to Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Karoline Leavitt, JD Vance, and others in a bombshell two-part feature.
Whipple has discussed his reporting process for the story, and now, here’s Anderson in conversation with VF, taking us behind the scenes of the assignment that he almost turned down. And, to answer the question on everyone’s mind right away, Anderson says of those ultra-tight shots, “No, they’re not cropped versions. I’m standing very, very close.”
Vanity Fair: What compelled you to take this assignment for Vanity Fair?
Christopher Anderson: I wasn’t eager to accept the assignment at first. My roots are in journalism, I have done a lot of political work over the years and photographed a lot of politicians from the last administrations, from George Bush to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, even Bill Clinton. But a lot of what I do now is photograph celebrities. And I assumed incorrectly that the ask was for me to show up and be a celebrity photographer for this administration. And my journalistic DNA would not sit comfortably with this idea. So I thought, at first, I’m not gonna accept. Jennifer Pastore, the global creative director of Vanity Fair, and I had a long discussion about this, and she persuaded me that wearing my celebrity photographer hat was not why they were coming to me. That the qualification for this job was to come as a journalist, to bring a certain sense of clear-eyed observation and even skepticism. And that would come with a certain challenge and in my opinion, I felt an enormous responsibility in doing that. So that very much aligned with what my history is, what my roots have been in, it’s an historical moment, so I want to be there.
Kahina Sekkaï
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