Trump’s New Chief of Staff Is No John Kelly

Susie Wiles with Donald Trump at an election night party on Nov. 6, 2024. Alex BrandonAP

Donald Trump announced Thursday that Susie Wiles, who as his de facto campaign manager is credited with imposing a measure of discipline that helped him win on Tuesday, will serve as his chief of staff.

Wiles has earned a reputation as a smart, pragmatic, and effective campaign operative. For critics of Trump’s agenda—which includes deporting millions of immigrants, imposing tariffs likely to increase inflation, firing vast swaths of civil servants and using the Justice Department to prosecute critics—her appointment is bad news.

“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected,” Trump said in a statement Thursday. “Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America great again,”

Wiles will not be John Kelly, who, along with labeling Trump a fascist, has let it be known that as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, he worked to prevent Trump from indulging his worst instincts.

Wiles is not going to the White House to stop Trump implementing his plans—she will be there to help him more effectively impose them. Wiles may be a reason that Trump, a bumbling, wanna-be authoritarian in his first term, will be a more effective one in his second.

Nor is Wiles likely to go too far in stopping Trump from pursuing some of his worst impulses.

As Tim Alberta reported recently in the Atlantic, Wiles was occasionally willing to push back on Trump’s bad ideas, but not too often. Here is Alberta describing how Wiles handled Trump’s insistence on allowing far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to travel with Trump in September, a decision that drew embarrassing headlines when Loomer, who has claimed the 9/11 attack was an “inside job,” joined Trump at a 9/11 memorial event.

“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 daughter of late NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, Wiles is a longtime GOP operative in Florida with a history of working for rich candidates. She ran Sen. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida’s governorship, worked as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign manager in 2012, and ran Trump’s campaign in Florida in 2016 and 2020. She also worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before a falling out with him.

Wiles has also worked as a lobbyist, and held onto a senior lobbying position with the Republican-leaning advocacy firm Mercury Public Affairs during the campaign, according to the New York Times. She was registered as a lobbyist for a tobacco company as recently as this year.

Wiles also worked from 2017 through 2019 as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, formerly a Florida-based firm that built a thriving DC practice after Trump’s 2016 election—based in part on perceived access to him.

While Wiles worked there, the firm signed up a colorful roster of clients that included a Russian billionaire, a firm run by a man linked to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and a solar company controlled by a state-owned Chinese firm. Wiles wasn’t a registered lobbyist for all of those clients. But she registered to represent a host of outfits, including General Motors and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Wiles also lobbied on behalf of Globovisión, a Venezuelan firm that was looking to expand into US markets. That plan hit a hitch in 2018, when the Justice Department indicted its founder, Raul Gorrin, on corruption charges. Ballard said it cut ties with the firm after learning of the federal probe. Last month, the Justice Department indicted Gorrin again, alleging that he helped “to launder funds corruptly obtained from Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled energy company… in exchange for hundreds of millions in bribe payments to Venezuelan officials.”

A Trump spokesperson didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment on Wiles’ lobbying work.