With her selection as White House chief of staff under President-elect Donald Trump, veteran Florida political strategist Susie Wiles moves from a behind-the-scenes campaign co-chair role to the senior position of the president’s closest advisor. And a lawyer.
She has been in political circles for years. But who is Wiles, the agent set to become the first woman to serve as the powerful White House chief of staff?
She has decades of experience, most of it in Florida
The daughter of NFL player and sportscaster Pat Summerall, Wells worked in New York Rep. Jack Kemp’s Washington office in the 1970s. After that, there were stints on Ronald Reagan’s campaign and in the White House as a scheduler.
Wells then headed to Florida, where she advised two Jacksonville mayors and worked for Rep. Tillie Fowler. Next came statewide campaigns in the rough and tumble of Florida politics, where Wells is credited with helping businessman Rick Scott win the governorship.
After briefly managing Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign, she managed Trump’s 2016 effort in Florida, when his win in the state helped him win the White House.
She has a history with Ron DeSantis
Two years later, Wells helped elect Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida. But a rift between the two eventually led DeSantis to urge Trump’s 2020 campaign to cut ties with the strategist, when she was once again running the then-president’s campaign.
Wells eventually went on to lead Trump’s primary campaign against DeSantis and beat the Florida governor. Trump campaign aides and outside allies gleefully mocked DeSantis throughout the race — mocking his laugh, the way he ate and accusing him of wearing lifts in his shoes — as well as using inside knowledge that many suspect came from Wells and others in the Trump campaign. Employees who also worked for DeSantis and had bad experiences.
Wells had only published three times on X this year at the time of her announcement. Shortly before DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race in January, Wells made a rare appearance on social media. She responded to a message that DeSantis had purged his campaign website of upcoming events with a short but clear message: “Bye, bye.”
She avoids the spotlight most of the time
Wiles joined the third Trump campaign in its early days, is one of the few senior officials to survive the entire Trump campaign and was part of the team that put together a more professional operation for his third White House bid — even if the former president had routinely breached those barriers anyway. .
She has largely avoided the spotlight, even refusing to use a microphone to speak as Trump celebrated his victory early Wednesday morning.
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But she showed that she was not above taking on the tasks assigned to volunteers. At one of Trump’s appearances in Iowa in July last year, while the former president was taking photos with a long line of voters, Wiles grabbed a clipboard and began approaching people waiting to fill out commitment cards for Trump’s presidential caucus. Initial lead competition.
“If we leave the conference room after a meeting and someone leaves trash on the table, Susie is the person who will pick up the trash and put it in the trash,” said Chris Lacivita, who served as campaign co-chair with Wiles.
Another of her three posts on After Wiles was named White House chief of staff, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Trump supporter, quipped on Channel X that the president-elect had chosen a “strong, smart woman” to be his chief of staff.
It can control some of Trump’s worst impulses
Wiles was able to help control Trump’s worst impulses — not by berating him or lecturing him, but by earning his respect and showing him that he was better off following her advice rather than mocking her. Late in the campaign, when Trump gave a widely criticized speech in Pennsylvania in which he deviated from his talking points and suggested he didn’t mind taking shots at the media, Wiles came out to silently stare at him.
Trump often referred to Wiles during his campaign, publicly praising her leadership of what he said he was often told was his “best campaign.”
“It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable,” he said at a Milwaukee rally earlier this month.
Will it have staying power?
In his first administration, Trump went through four chiefs of staff — including one who served in the acting position for a year — in a period of record personnel turnover.
The chief of staff serves as the president’s confidant, helping to implement the agenda and balance competing policy and political priorities. They also tend to act as gatekeepers, helping determine who the president spends their time with and who they talk to — an effort that has drawn Trump’s ire inside the White House.
Trump has repeatedly said he believes the biggest mistake he made in his first term was hiring the wrong people. He said he was new in Washington at the time and didn’t know any better.
But Trump now says he knows the “best people” and those to avoid in jobs.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
