Donald Trump singled out Susie Wiles for praise during his election victory speech. Photo / AFP
Donald Trump singled out Susie Wiles for praise during his election victory speech. Photo / AFP
When Donald Trump delivered his victory speech in West Palm Beach, among those he thanked for helping to propel him to the presidency was a woman he called the “ice maiden”. The woman in question was Susie Wiles, the veteran Republican political adviser who has masterminded Trump’s return to power and has just been made his new chief of staff.
“Susie likes to stay in the back, let me tell you. We call her the ice maiden,” the President-elect said in his Florida speech. “She is not in the background [any more].” Naming her as his new right-hand woman, President Trump said: “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.
“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected.
“Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again. It is a well-deserved honour 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.”
The 67-year-old is among the small group of aides in Trump’s inner circle who have his ear.
But unlike many of Trump’s surrogates, Wiles has long maintained a low profile. Even in her crowning moment, when the victorious Republican candidate beckoned her to the microphone, she politely declined to step forward, leaving a reluctant Chris La Civita, her co-campaign manager, to thank her instead.
Susie Wiles (in cream) has been named White House chief of staff in Donald Trump's first major appointment since winning this week's presidential election. Photo / Getty Images via AFP
Wiles is a grandmother, keen baker and birdwatcher with a hawkish political instinct.
Many Republicans credit Trump’s political comeback to her bringing a new sense of discipline and direction, albeit at times transitory, to his campaign. Trump himself repeatedly referred to his advisers’ attempts to keep him on message during his stump speeches.
Wiles entered Trump’s orbit in 2016 when she ran his campaign operations in the then-battleground state of Florida, steering him to victory.
In 2018 Trump parachuted her in to rescue the floundering campaign of Ron DeSantis, then a little-known congressman. She was also credited with helping to elect Florida senator Rick Scott in his last-minute self-funded 2019 bid, cementing her reputation as a political escape artist.
Despite her success on the DeSantis campaign, Wiles was unceremoniously fired by him in 2019 after a bribery scandal triggered by leaks within his operation. She was also relieved of her regional GOP duties, allegedly after the ambitious governor placed pressure on Trump.
Out in the cold, Wiles was facing a dead end in Florida Republican circles when Trump came calling. The former President needed someone to whip his flagging political operation into shape as his command of the GOP slipped away in the wake of January 6.
Not only did Trump’s decision earn him the loyalty of his most trusted adviser. It also gave him the ammunition to eviscerate his one-time opponent DeSantis in the subsequent 2022 mid-terms.
Susie Wiles is never far from the President-elect’s ear. Photo / AFP
“Wiles and Trump are loyal to each other because, after DeSantis, Trump brought Susie back from the political dead,” a source told the Hill in 2022.
Key to her appeal, reports claim, was that, unlike other members of Trump’s entourage who sought to leech off him, Wiles wasn’t looking to gain political capital in return.
When she first accepted the job of running Trump’s campaign in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, she asked only that her travel expenses be covered, reports suggest.
“She’s purely focused on doing whatever she can for my father,” Donald Trump Jnr previously said of Wiles. “It’s not about making money, it’s not about getting press, it’s not about getting credit, it’s about doing everything she can to fight for my dad.”
Described variously as “the most powerful Republican you don’t know” and “the most feared” political operative in America, Wiles is allegedly one of few people respected enough by the President for him to listen when she disagrees with him.
Taking up the mantle of Trump’s chief of staff will be no mean feat. Of her four predecessors, all of whom were men, one was fired via Twitter, two are now outspoken opponents of the President-elect and the final one, Mark Meadows, is still being pursued over charges relating to attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
But Wiles is no stranger to the male-dominated bear pit of Republican politics.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Wiles is the daughter of the late NFL star and broadcaster Pat Summerall. The campaign manager cut her teeth in politics as a scheduler in Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign.
She went on to develop a reputation for winning in Florida as chief of staff to Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney in the 90s as well as for Florida congresswoman Tillie Fowler.
“I have rarely met someone with her instincts for politics and policy and where they intersect,” Delaney previously said. “She knows what to magnify that will resonate with the public.”
As a young aide in the Reagan administration, she experienced her first brush with scandal when her boss, Raymond Donovan, was investigated for alleged connections to the Florida mob.
Her reputation came under further scrutiny amid allegations the former President Trump had shown her classified documents for which he had been indicted.
There is also speculation surrounding her daughter, Caroline Wiles. The younger Wiles was hired by the White House as a deputy assistant to the President and director of scheduling, despite the Washington Post noting that, with her incomplete degree, she had an “unusual background” for the senior role.
Broad coalition
Having served as chief executive of Trump’s Save America political action committee (Pac) since March 2021, Susie Wiles has united a broad coalition of Republicans under the Trump banner to lead him to victory. “She has to interact with people who think [the election was stolen], and people who don’t,” political strategist Michael Caputo told CNN.
Her ability as a dealmaker suggests her willingness to compromise with various factions within her party to bring about change.
“I come from a very traditional background,” she once told Politico. “In my early career, things like manners mattered and there was an expected level of decorum. And so I get it that the GOP of today is different. There are changes we must live with in order to get done the things we’re trying to do.”
Those concerned about what a second Trump term will look like may take solace in the fact that Wiles is widely viewed as a moderating influence on her boss’s more capricious tendencies.
“Her power with Trump is based on her ability to present him with a full range of options,” a source previously told the Hill. “Because Trump is impulsive, Wiles makes sure Trump has heard the full range of options, upsides, and downsides. She makes sure he has all the information.
“When he does, Trump makes good decisions. When he doesn’t is when bad decisions are made.”
Former Florida congressman Carlos Curbelo sums up the mood among many Republicans: “If Donald Trump is going to be President, I want Susie Wiles involved.”
