President-elect (ugh) Donald Trump made his first staffing pick on Thursday, naming his campaign manager, Susie "Ice Maiden" Wiles, as his White House chief of staff. According to seemingly everyone, Wiles is basically the reason Trump won, and also the reason Trump won Florida in 2016, and the reason Ron DeSantis became Florida's governor in 2018, and the reason Rick Scott became Florida's senator in 2010. Neat!
So while she will be the White House's first-ever female chief of staff, that milestone gets canceled out by the fact that she achieved it through getting some of the most heinous and most anti-abortion politicians elected.
"Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you," Trump said while thanking Wiles in his victory speech on Wednesday. "The ice maiden we call her," he continued while beckoning her to the podium. (No clear explanation on why she's called the "Ice Maiden," but stay tuned, I guess.) But the political strategist, who lived up to her reputation of hating the spotlight, merely shook Trump's hand and refused to speak when he gesutred her towards the mic.
Apart from being camera shy and having a weird nickname, what else do we know about Wiles? According to her campaign co-chair, Chris LaCivita, she's great at taking out the trash! I'd argue she's even better tat taking the trash and ensuring it gets elected to positions of power, but tomayto, tomato.
“If we leave the conference room after a meeting and somebody leaves trash on the table, Susie’s the person to grab the trash and put it in the trash can,” LaCivita once said, according to the Associated Press. Women cleaning up men's messes? We love to see it!
Here's her very quick fact sheet: Wiles is the daughter of former NFL kicker and sportscaster Pat Summerall; she worked on Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign and then became chief of staff to the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, staying in Florida politics for a couple of decades, which included getting Florida Sen. Rick Scott elected in 2010. In 2012, she ran Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's unsuccessful presidential bid and then went on to handle Trump's Florida campaign in 2016—a state he won over Hillary Clinton. In 2018, she got Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis elected, then was named CEO of Trump's Save America PAC in 2021. She reportedly had a falling out with DeSantis around 2020, which led to her joining Trump's presidential campaign in early 2023.
And here's an especially fun fact: Wiles' daughter, Caroline Wiles, was hired by the Trump administration in 2016 (she was 30 at the time) as a deputy assistant to the president and director of scheduling in the White House. She resigned about a month after his inauguration because she failed an FBI background check. According to a story in the Washington Post from 2018, her resume said she graduated from Flager College in Florida, but the college told the Post that she "did not continue her enrollment or graduate from here." The report also mentioned that Caroline was eventually moved to the White House's Presidential Personnel Office and made a special assistant to the president, where she likely made about $115,000. Cool!
In April, POLITICO Magazine published a profile of Wiles with the headline, "The Most Feared and Least Known Political Operative in America." It's a great read, especially if you feel like spiraling further into madness this weekend. If not, here's a quick excerpt:
She’s a soft-spoken Episcopalian. She’s a self-described moderate. Over the last few months, I’ve talked about Wiles with more than 100 people, people who have worked with her, around her, for her and against her, and there is a surprisingly bipartisan consensus: She’s good at what she does. She’s a savvy operator, a capable manager, a spotter and cultivator of up-and-coming talent, a maker and keeper of relationships with reporters, and a sly, subtle shaper of stories that help frame the political currents that can determine the difference between a win and a loss.But coursing, too, through my conversations were not just questions I had for these scores of people but questions these people had for me — earnest inquiries from types who are perhaps not so accustomed to such doubt. Why is she working for him? And why does it seem to be working so well? Republicans and Democrats alike who know her and respect her and respect her work — they struggle to explain it. People who have considered themselves confidants and friends — they talk and they text, not so much with her as with each other, perplexed. In her usually calm disposition, in what most of them consider her general good sense, some of them find some small solace — at least he, they say, is listening to her. For others, though, it’s that placid mien and level head that’s in some sense precisely the source of the confusion. Liberals and even anti-Trump conservatives sketch analogies to the most odious authoritarians and see Wiles therefore by extension as the kind of associate who’s smart enough and sane enough to know better — and without whom any would-be dictator would be unable to get or wield such potentially destructive power. They see her as an accomplice.
Wiles, for her part, told the magazine that she's from a "very traditional background" and that, while manners used to matter to the GOP, they don't anymore, and so it is what it is. She also said of her critics: "They don’t know the inner workings of Trump world. And so they don’t have a right to judge in that way, in my opinion, and I’m not going to dignify it." I love how when anyone who works for Trump is asked why they choose to work for a convicted felon and sexual predator, the response is always some version of, "You just don't understand." Like, yeah girl, that's why we're asking. Anyway.
“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. He obviously lost in 2020, so...we're already off to a great start.
According to CNN, Wiles only took the role after Trump agreed that "the clown car can’t come into the White House at will." I have no idea who's actually, truly considered a clown in MAGA world, but I really hope the clown car Wiles is talking about includes J.D. Vance.
