Trump names his right-hand woman

A new administration starts to take shape.

Nov 08, 2024

Good morning! It’s Friday, November 8, 2024. Inauguration Day is 73 days away.

This morning, I want to fill you in on President-elect Donald Trump’s first personnel choice — and what it says about his next administration.

Are there political dynamics you’re curious about in the wake of the election? Leave a comment or email me (gabe@wakeuptopolitics.com) to ask a question, I’m planning to do a post-election mailbag column at some point next week. Have a great weekend!

Susie Wiles and Donald Trump. (Photo via @susie57 / Twitter)

In Donald Trump’s political career, he has had six campaign managers and four chiefs of staff.

None of them have had the staying power of Susie Wiles, the longtime Florida political consultant who Trump announced on Thursday would serve as White House chief of staff in his next administration. She will be the first woman in history to hold the role.

Wiles, who previously ran Trump’s Florida operations in 2016 and 2020, surged to the top of his political machine in March 2021, when the former president was at the lowest point of his political life — exiled from Washington, ignored by his fellow Republicans. Unlike previous Trump aide-de-camps, who tended to come and go, Wiles remained at the helm over the next three-and-a-half years, steering him out of the wilderness and back to the White House.

“We call her the ice maiden,” Trump said at his victory speech on Wednesday morning.

There are a few dynamics to pay attention to here. First, it’s worth considering who else was reportedly on Trump’s short list for the job, which is known as the second-most powerful in Washington: Russell Vought, a MAGA loyalist who has outlined a “post-Constitutional” vision for Trump’s second term; Brooke Rollins, a Jared Kushner ally who has promoted criminal justice reform; and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Vought is who you might pick if you want to start tearing down the guardrails from Day 1. Rollins would have been a message of moderation. McCarthy is who you go to if you want maximum Washington experience, a longtime legislator with relationships in all corners of the Hill.

Wiles is none of those things. She, like Trump himself, is much more of an ideological blank slate — her CV ranges features work for moderate Republicans like Jack Kemp (a former teammate of her father, the legendary NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall) and Jon Huntsman (whose 2012 presidential campaign, which Wiles managed, was run to the left of Mitt Romney), as well as Trumpier candidates like Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis (she helmed successful gubernatorial bids for both of them).

Instead of loyalties to a certain faction of the GOP, Wiles brings with her a reputation as a ruthlessly efficient operator — a steely grandmother who gets things done.

The only asterisk? She has no experience in Washington, something that has tripped up White House chiefs before. Previous chiefs of staff with little D.C. exposure have struggled in the job, including Hamilton Jordan (Jimmy Carter’s campaign manager-turned-COS), Mack McClarty (a friend of Bill Clinton’s since kindergarten), and Bill Daley (who arrived to the Obama White House as a business titan).

This is something to keep an eye on, especially if Trump also elevates Washington neophytes like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Elon Musk — both reportedly eyeing plum positions — as well. As Trump himself learned in his first administration, the levers of executive power, and how they interplay with the legislative and judicial branches, are complex, and quite unlike managing a business (Musk), campaign (Wiles), or whatever it is RFK Jr. used to do.

Wiles is known for running a tight ship — and for expertly navigating the murky waters of Trumpworld — but if Trump’s subsequent key picks lack previous D.C. experience, he will likely find it as difficult to govern in his second administration as he did in his first.

One more thing to note. Per CNN, Wiles set certain conditions with Trump before accepting the job. “At the top of the list,” the network reported, “was more control over who can reach the president in the Oval Office.” As one of CNN’s sources put it, Wiles told him that “the clown car can’t come into the White House at will. And he agrees with her.”

But if history is any guide, that agreement will be short-lived. A major theme of the 2024 campaign postmortems has been the running struggle between Trump and Wiles over who would have access to his orbit — a struggle Wiles has been better at waging than previous Trump gatekeepers, but still one that has plainly led to tension.

Here’s The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, describing the back-and-forth between Trump and Wiles over whether to bring Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, onto his campaign plane:

Later that day, when Trump relayed this request to Wiles—who, since the beginning of the campaign, had controlled the flight manifest—she registered disbelief. “Sir, our next trip is to Philadelphia for the debate,” Wiles told Trump, according to two people familiar with the conversation. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Trump shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just stick her in the back of the plane.”
Wiles knew that nothing good could come of this. Still, after one more round of gentle pushback, she acquiesced. (Even people like Wiles, who have a track record of talking Trump out of certain reckless ideas, learn that you cannot retain a seat at the table if you tell the man “no” one time too many.) Wiles decided that allowing Loomer on the trip was not a hill to die on. Perhaps, she would later remark to friends, it should have been.

The Washington Post and New York Times also reported on Wiles’ attempts throughout the campaign to rein Trump in, some of which were successful (persuading him to support early voting and oppose a national abortion ban), while others went astray.

At times, Trump would even publicly chafe at Wiles’ efforts to constrain him. “So I’m allowed to do that, aren’t I, Susan Wiles?” Trump once said at a campaign rally, after complaining that he wasn’t allowed to call a young woman “beautiful.”

And so, Trump 2.0 begins. With Wiles, Trump has his first Adult in the Room — someone more pliant than a John Kelly or Rex Tillerson, but with an equally long (and mixed) track record of trying to moderate Trump’s most excessive impulses. Whether she finds more success in the West Wing than her predecessors remains an open question.