Who is Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's new White House chief of staff?
UNB
Publish: 08 Nov 2024, 12:50 PM
WASHINGTON,
Nov 8(AP/UNB) - With her selection as President-elect Donald Trump 's incoming
White House chief of staff, veteran Florida political strategist Susie Wiles
moves from a largely behind-the-scenes role of campaign co-chair to the
high-profile position of the president's closest adviser and counsel.
She's been in political
circles for years. But who is Wiles, the operative set to be the first woman to
step into the powerful role of White House chief of staff?
She has decades of
experience, most of it in Florida
The daughter of NFL
player and sportscaster Pat Summerall, Wiles worked in the Washington office of
New York Rep. Jack Kemp in the 1970s. Following that were stints on Ronald
Reagan's campaign and in his White House as a scheduler.
Wiles then headed to
Florida, where she advised two Jacksonville mayors and worked for Rep. Tillie
Fowler. After that came statewide campaigns in rough and tumble Florida
politics, with Wiles being credited with helping businessman Rick Scott win the
governor's office.
After briefly managing
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's 2012 presidential campaign, she ran Trump's 2016
effort in Florida, when his win in the state helped him clinch the White House.
She has a history with
Ron DeSantis
Two years later, Wiles
helped get Ron DeSantis elected as Florida's governor. But the two would
develop a rift that eventually led to DeSantis to urge Trump's 2020 campaign to
cuts its ties with the strategist, when she was again running the then-president's
state campaign.
Wiles ultimately went on
to lead Trump's primary campaign against DeSantis and trounced the Florida
governor. Trump campaign aides and their outside allies gleefully taunted
DeSantis throughout the race - mocking his laugh, the way he ate and accusing
him of wearing lifts in his boots - as well as using insider knowledge that
many suspected had come from Wiles and others on Trump's campaign staff who had
also worked for DeSantis and had had bad experiences.
Wiles had posted just
three times on X this year at the time of her announcement. Shortly before
DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race in January, Wiles made a rare
appearance on social media. She responded to a message that DeSantis had
cleared his campaign website of upcoming events with a short but clear message:
"Bye, bye."
She shuns the spotlight
- most of the time
Joining up with Trump's
third campaign in its nascent days, Wiles is one of the few top officials to
survive an entire Trump campaign and was part of the team that put together a
far more professional operation for his third White House bid - even if the
former president routinely broke through those guardrails anyway.
She largely avoided the
spotlight, even refusing to take the mic to speak as Trump celebrated his
victory early Wednesday morning.
But she showed she was
not above taking on tasks reserved for volunteers. At one of Trump's
appearances in Iowa in July of last year, as the former president posed for
pictures with a long line of voters, Wiles grabbed a clipboard and started
approaching people waiting to get them to fill out cards committing to caucus
for Trump in the leadoff primary contest.
"If we leave the
conference room after a meeting and somebody leaves trash on the table, Susie's
the person to grab the trash and put it in the trash can," said Chris
LaCivita, who served as campaign co-chair along with Wiles.
Another of her three
posts on X this year was in the closing days of the campaign, clapping back
after billionaire Mark Cuban remarked that Trump didn't have "strong,
intelligent women" in his orbit. After Wiles' selection as White House
chief of staff, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Trump backer, quipped on X that
the president-elect had chosen a "strong, intelligent woman" as his
chief of staff.
She can control some of
Trump's worst impulses
Wiles was able to help
control Trump's worst impulses - not by chiding him or lecturing, but by
earning his respect and showing him that he was better off when he followed her
advice than flouted it. At one point late in the campaign, when Trump gave a
widely criticized speech in Pennsylvania in which he strayed from his talking
points and suggested he wouldn't mind the media being shot, Wiles came out to
stare at him silently.
Trump often referenced
Wiles on the campaign trail, publicly praising her leadership of what he said
he was often told was his "best-run campaign."
"She's incredible.
Incredible," he said at a Milwaukee rally earlier this month.
Will she have staying
power?
In his first
administration, Trump went through four chiefs of staff - including one who
served in an acting capacity for a year - in a period of record-setting
personnel churn.
A chief of staff serves
as the president's confidant, helping to execute an agenda and balancing
competing political and policy priorities. They also tend to serve as a
gatekeeper, helping determine whom the president spends their time and to whom
they speak - an effort under which Trump chafed inside the White House.
Trump has repeatedly
said he believes the biggest mistake of his first term was hiring the wrong
people. He was new to Washington then, he has said, and didn't know any better.
But now, Trump says, he
knows the "best people" and those to avoid for jobs.
End/UNB/AP/SU