Trump Names Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff, First Woman to Hold Title

Trump Names Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff, First Woman to Hold Title

President-elect Donald Trump chose Susan Summerall Wiles, his de facto campaign manager, as his White House Chief of Staff.

Wiles is the first female to hold the hold the position.

“Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history, and was an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns,” President Trump said in a press email. “Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected. Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again. It is a well deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”

People noticed that Trump’s campaign became better managed and organized since he had Wiles aboard.

By the way, her father is the late Pat Summerall, a former football player, and beloved broadcaster with the late John Madden.

The chief of staff position was created in 1946. Since then, only males have held the title.

It’s probably the most important job, usually the first position picked by the incoming president.

Here is CNN reporting the announcement. Kristen Holmes explained the importance of Wiles:

As we talked about earlier today, Susie had been the top contender going into this. She is someone who makes Donald Trump feel comfortable. She is also someone who has really lasted the longest in Donald Trump’s orbit, a place that is known for knife fighting and backstabbing. She has been loyal to the former president, a constant by his side, since he left office in 2021.

One thing I will say, Jake, she has some stipulations that he clearly agreed to, telling one source that she didn’t want the clown car to be able to have access to the White House at any time, meaning those people who they don’t want near Donald Trump. She clearly won that argument. She will be the first female chief of staff in the United States history.

JUST IN: Donald Trump's campaign manager Susie Wiles has been named Chief of Staff.

She is the first female Chief of Staff in history.

Wiles has been credited for running what is seen as Trump's "most sophisticated and disciplined campaign."

"She is someone who makes Donald… pic.twitter.com/8fqf4gAPH0

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 7, 2024

Wiles is a veteran of Florida politics. Politico published a profile on her in April titled “The Most Feared and Least Known Political Operative in America.”

Author Michael Kruse and others couldn’t believe Wiles would work for Trump. She constantly told Kruse through the piece:

“I sort of think, maybe naively, that if everybody knew what I knew — what I know — they wouldn’t feel as some do about Donald Trump. Does that mean I think he’s perfect? There are certainly things I would do and say differently — absolutely,” she told me.

“But people don’t know what I know.”

Overall, Wiles prefers to stay in the background. Maybe if she were more front and center, Mark Cuban wouldn’t have commented on Trump not having strong and independent women around him:

Susie Wiles, the people who know her the best believe, is a force more sensed than seen. Her influence on political events, to many who know what they’re watching, is as obvious as it is invisible. The prints leave not so much as a smudge. It’s a shock when she shows up in pictures. Even then it is almost always in the background. She speaks on the record hardly ever, and she speaks about herself even less.

Trump tried to bring Wiles to the microphone during his speech on Tuesday night after victory. He insisted she join him at the microphone. She eventually made her way to Trump but refused to speak.

Kruse found bipartisan fondness and appreciation for Wiles:

She’s a mother. She’s a grandmother — she turns 67 next month. She’s worked in politics for more than 40 years — for presidents, for mayors, for governors, for members of Congress. She’s a soft-spoken Episcopalian. She’s a self-described moderate. Over the last few months, I’ve talked about Wiles with more than 100 people, people who have worked with her, around her, for her and against her, and there is a surprisingly bipartisan consensus: She’s good at what she does. She’s a savvy operator, a capable manager, a spotter and cultivator of up-and-coming talent, a maker and keeper of relationships with reporters, and a sly, subtle shaper of stories that help frame the political currents that can determine the difference between a win and a loss. She’s helmed signature statewide campaigns in 2010, 2016, 2018 and 2020 — Rick Scott, Trump, DeSantis, Trump again — all of which could have been defeats but were not. “She was already the most successful, well-respected Republican operative in Florida by a long mile, and she’s now cementing that brand,” said Ashley Walker, a Democratic strategist who twice ran Barack Obama’s Florida campaigns and has worked in lobbying with Wiles. “She is,” said Joe Gruters, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, current state senator and longtime Trump ally, “the most valuable political adviser in the country.”

Even those who do not like Trump told Kruse that if he should win, they hope he brings Wiles to the White House

Wiles helped Trump win Florida in 2016. He brought her back in 2020. Florida is the only swing state he won in 2020.

In March 2021, Trump asked Wiles to come back. She served as CEO of Trump’s Save America PAC. Politico described the job as one “to instill order.” One adviser said Trump told everyone “around Mar-a-Lago that Susie is now in charge.”

Wiles knew all the ins and outs about DeSantis, a huge plus for Trump’s victory over the Florida governor in the 2024 primary. In fact, it’s believed Wiles fed stories about DeSantis to the media:

“The only person that could have potentially even given a challenge to Trump was DeSantis, and so killing him and killing him early and in every way possible was the best strategy,” Fabrizio, the Trump pollster, told me. “And let’s not forget, if you look at the major reporters that started covering this” — the rise and then fall of DeSantis — “several of them had come out of Florida,” he said, naming Marc Caputo of The Bulwark (formerly of the Miami Herald and POLITICO), Alex Leary of the Wall Street Journal (Tampa Bay Times) and Michael Bender of the New York Times (ditto) — all of whom have known Wiles and vice versa for the better part of a decade and a half. (I worked at the Tampa Bay Times, too, before going to POLITICO; back then, though, I wrote about politics sparingly.) “DeSantis people weren’t feeding them anything on Trump, even rumors,” Fabrizio told me. “What were they getting fed?”
—

“I know she talked to reporters,” a Republican consultant who knows Florida and Wiles well told me. “I also know that she knows what I know, and I know that she would sometimes direct reporters to me, because that gives her a layer, a level, of distance.”

“They had their hands on this narrative all along,” a Democratic consultant who knows Florida and Wiles well told me. “That’s what Susie does.”

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