Susie Wiles, who was named Donald Trump’s new White House chief of staff, will be the first woman to serve in the role as gatekeeper to the president, a position that typically wields great influence.
The chief of staff position is usually the first appointee that a president-elect names, and may oversee the transition from one administration. Once Trump is sworn in as president, Wiles will also be in charge of all White House policy, serving as a confidant and adviser and managing day-to-day affairs.
Wiles, 67, is a veteran of Florida politics who ran Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns in the state and served as his “de facto chief of staff” over the last three years to lead his successful re-election bid and helped him work with lawyers on his various criminal and civil cases.
“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,” Trump said in a statement. “Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected.”
Trump also mentioned her in his victory speech in Palm Beach, Florida. “Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The Ice Maiden. We call her the Ice Maiden,” he said.
In a profile, Politico described her as a “force more sensed than seen”, crediting her as the reason the former president’s latest campaign has been “more professional than its fractious, seat-of-the-pants antecedents”.
Wiles is a veteran of Florida politics who led Trump’s 2016 campaign in the state. She also worked with Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott, Florida’s current and former governors. The Trump campaign had fired her after a falling out with DeSantis, but brought her back for the 2020 campaign in the state.
A self-described moderate, Wiles has also been credited – by Trump’s allies and opponents – as the person who has given him the discipline and focus to succeed politically. She has been known to keep good relationships with reporters, and holds a wealth of knowledge about all aspects of running a campaign.
Some have also described her as an enabler of Trump’s dictatorial ambitions. “Susie Wiles is way too smart of a human being and way too sophisticated a political operator to not understand,” Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster and MSNBC analyst, told Politico.
Wiles has little experience in Washington, however, aside from working in the Ronald Regan administration as a scheduler at the labor department and on Capitol Hill for the late congressman Jack Kemp.
During Trump’s first term, the president had a series of chiefs of staff: Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, General John Kelly, former South Carolina representative Mick Mulvaney and former North Carolina representative Mark Meadows.
The former president often disagreed with or tired of his appointees. In the weeks before the election, Kelly, the retired marine general, notably said that Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist”.