President-elect Donald Trump named Susan Summerall Wiles, his 2024 campaign manager, as his White House Chief of Staff on Thursday. Wiles will be the first woman to hold the position in the nation’s history.
“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.”
He added: “Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again. It is a well deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”
Trump gave a shoutout to Wiles during his victory speech on Election Night.
“Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie and Chris [LaCivita], the job you did. Susie, come, Susie,” Trump said, before inviting her up to the microphone to speak.
Wiles was onstage with Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, but declined to come up and speak to the crowd.
“Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice baby. We call her the ice baby. Susie likes to stay in the background. She’s not in the background,” Trump said.
Prior to 2024, Wiles helped Trump in Florida during his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs. Between those elections, she also helped Ron DeSantis in his run for Florida governor; after a falling out with DeSantis, Wiles was briefly removed from helping Trump in Florida, before being brought back a short time later.
Reinhold “Reince” Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, was Trump’s first appointee as chief of staff during his first presidency.
Priebus, who still backed Trump but wasn’t interested in returning to the position, told Politico in July, “Whatever Trump wants to do in his agenda, he’s going to have the ability to do it much faster, less clumsy. It’s like walking into a new house — after the first two weeks, you know where everything’s at. This is a president that’s going to have people around him, I think they’re going to get things done extremely quickly.”
However, another former Trump chief of staff, John Kelly, openly campaigned against the GOP leader, telling the New York Times last month that Trump fits the definition of fascist.
“[He] admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist,” Kelly said at the time.
