Donald Trump announced On Thursday, Susie Wiles, who as his de facto campaign manager was credited with imposing a degree of discipline that helped him win on Tuesday, will take over as his chief of staff.
Wiles gained a reputation as a smart, pragmatic and effective campaigner. Her appointment is bad news for critics of Trump’s agenda, which includes deporting millions of immigrants, imposing tariffs that are likely to increase inflation, firing scores of government employees and using the Justice Department to prosecute critics.
“Suu Kyi is tough, smart, innovative and respected and admired around the world,” Trump said in a statement Thursday. “Suzy will work tirelessly to make America great again.”
Wiles would not be John Kelly, who branded Trump a fascist and revealed that as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, he worked to prevent Trump from indulging his worst instincts.
Wiles won’t go to the White House to stop Trump from carrying out his plan. She will be there to help him implement the plan more effectively. Wiles may be the reason why Trump, who was bumbling and eager to become an authoritarian during his first term, may be more effective in his second.
Nor is Wiles likely to go too far to stop Trump from pursuing his worst impulses.
As Tim Alberta recently reported: AtlanticWiles was sometimes willing to push back against Trump’s bad ideas, but not too often. Here’s an account from Alberta explaining how Wiles handled Trump’s claim in September that he would allow far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to travel with him. The decision made embarrassing headlines when Rumors joined in claiming the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job.” Trump attending the 9/11 memorial event.
“Wiles knew nothing good could come of this. Still, after one more gentle push, she acquiesced. (Even people like Wiles, who have experience talking down Trump about reckless ideas, find that if you tell the man ‘no’ too many times, you can’t keep your seat at the table.) Wiles decided to let Loomer . The journey was not a hill to die on. “Maybe she would tell her friends later that she should have.”
Wiles, the daughter of the late NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, is a GOP operative with a long history of working for wealthy candidates in Florida. She led Senator Rick Scott’s 2010 Florida gubernatorial campaign, served as former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign manager in 2012, and served as campaign manager for Trump in Florida in 2016 and 2020. We ran an election campaign. With him.
Wiles also worked as a lobbyist and reportedly held a senior lobbying position at Mercury Public Affairs, a Republican-leaning advocacy firm, during the campaign. new york times. Just this year, she was registered as a lobbyist for a tobacco company.
Wiles also worked as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners from 2017 to 2019. Ballard Partners was a Florida-based firm that built a thriving D.C. practice after Trump’s election in 2016 based on its perceived proximity to Trump.
During Wiles’ time there, the company signed up a colorful client list that included a Russian billionaire, a company run by a man linked to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and a solar company controlled by a state-owned Chinese company. Wiles was not a registered lobbyist for any of his clients. However, she signed up to represent several companies, including General Motors and the Motion Picture Association of America.
Wiles also lobbied on behalf of Globovisión, a Venezuelan company seeking expansion into the U.S. market. The scheme ran into trouble in 2018 when the Justice Department indicted founder Raul Gorrin on corruption charges. Ballard said he severed ties with the company after learning of the federal investigation. Last month, the Justice Department re-indicted Gorin, alleging that he “helped launder funds fraudulently obtained from Venezuela’s state-owned energy company in exchange for paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Venezuelan government officials.”
A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wiles’ lobbying activities.
