{"id":73,"date":"2026-05-27T08:12:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2026-05-27T08:12:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T08:12:38","slug":"susie-wiles-is-trumps-perfect-enabler-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"Susie Wiles is Trump\u2019s perfect enabler-in-chief"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles broke the mold when she signed onto the hugely influential job. The first woman to hold the role, she\u2019s also skillfully avoided making headlines during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. But that all changed with a pair of bombshell articles published Tuesday from Vanity Fair that shoved the reticent backstage player directly into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Read more Stephen Miller\u2019s push to attack alleged drug boats is primed to backfire<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Wiles has tamped down on the conniving and backbiting that characterized Trump\u2019s first turn in the White House. She may even outlast the longest of the four(ish) chiefs that held the job during those years. But based on what she revealed over the course of her 11 on-the-record interviews with author Chris Whipple, her job survival depends on being exactly the enabler-in-chief that Trump has needed at his side.<\/p>\n

Wiles herself disagrees with that moniker, but by her own admission, she hasn\u2019t had any major confrontations with the president over weighty topics such as constitutional rights or a policy\u2019s cost in human lives. (After the Vanity Fair articles were published, she denounced them in a statement as \u201ca disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest president, White House staff and Cabinet in history.\u201d)<\/p>\n

She instead says the difficult conversations she\u2019s had with Trump in her current role are \u201cover little things, not big.\u201d Wiles prefers to see herself as someone judicious in her pushback. \u201cSo no, I\u2019m not an enabler,\u201d she told Whipple. \u201cI\u2019m also not a b\u2014-. I try to be thoughtful about what I even engage in. I guess time will tell whether I\u2019ve been effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more immediate reviews of her job performance vary depending on who you ask. Vice President JD Vance told Whipple her predecessors\u2019 \u201cobjective was to control the president or influence the president, or even manipulate the president because they had to in order to serve the national interest.\u201d Instead, he said, \u201cher job is to actually facilitate his vision and to make his vision come to life.\u201d Vance is at least partially right about how previous chiefs of staff have viewed their job \u2014\u00a0but deeply wrong in his analysis of what that means for Wiles\u2019 efficacy in the job.<\/p>\n

Often the last person in the room after an Oval Office meeting, the chief of staff can be a crucial final sounding board for a commander-in-chief. As many former occupants of the role told Whipple, who literally wrote the book on White House chiefs of staff, one of the gig\u2019s main responsibilities comes down to challenging a president\u2019s assumptions and providing honest counsel against potential disaster. It\u2019s a responsibility that Wiles has been shirking, which is exactly as Trump prefers it.<\/p>\n

A look back at Trump\u2019s former chiefs shows how little he\u2019s wanted someone willing to say \u201cno.\u201d His first, Reince Priebus, got swept up in the tidal wave of chaos that Trump encouraged around him. The longest-serving of them, John Kelly, was a more effective gatekeeper for information and access to Trump and worked to at least soften or slow-walk some of his boss\u2019 more destructive tendencies. His unceremonious departure was a sign that Trump was no longer interested in being fettered.<\/p>\n

The last two(ish) men to hold the job in that first term were ineffective in different ways. Mick Mulvaney was only ever allowed to serve as \u201cacting\u201d chief of staff. His infamous admission that there was effectively a quid pro quo at work during the Ukraine scandal ahead of Trump\u2019s first impeachment meant his tenure would be brief. Mulvaney\u2019s successor, former congressman Mark Meadows, was the exact kind of \u201cyes man\u201d that Trump wanted. But despite his apparent delusional self-aggrandization, he lacked the skillset and temperament required to be effective in managing either the disastrous Covid-19 pandemic response or Trump\u2019s attempt to steal the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s pardon spree is doing real harm to real people<\/a><\/p>\n

By contrast, Wiles has a reputation as a clear-eyed political operative, bringing little drama or intrigue among her staff. She has no need to constrain or overrule her underlings, nor is there any question that when she speaks, she\u2019s channeling Trump\u2019s authority, something even Secretary of State Marco Rubio can\u2019t easily claim in meetings with heads of state. There\u2019s also very little ambition on display from her, a factor that keeps her from raising hackles among a crew of, as one of her deputies put it to Whipple, \u201cjunkyard dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when it comes to the president\u2019s policies and their consequences, Wiles is pliable to the point of becoming insubstantial. There appears to be no point where she wouldn\u2019t cede to the president\u2019s will. There are no examples across the two Vanity Fair articles of her successfully convincing Trump to change course \u2014\u00a0except for when he almost fired her from her role as Florida co-chair during the 2016 campaign.<\/p>\n

Over the course of a year, Whipple tracks the ways that Wiles has, as she put it, \u201cgot on board\u201d with Trump\u2019s worst policies. The decision to pardon all 1,500 Jan. 6 convictions, the president\u2019s ongoing vengeance campaign against his perceived enemies, the reckless bid to roll out a set of half-baked tariffs \u2014 all are framed as instances where Wiles offered the mildest pushback before ultimately getting with Trump\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

A certain level of indifferent amorality is on display from Wiles throughout her conversations with Whipple. On the rapid dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development under Elon Musk, her complaints are more about the process than the deadly outcome for thousands of foreign aid recipients. On the mass deportations that her most powerful deputy, Stephen Miller, is overseeing \u2014 even with reports of U.S. citizens being caught up in the sweeps \u2014 the most she could muster was that \u201cour process has to lean toward a double-check.\u201d And she stands by the string of military strikes against alleged drug smugglers\u2019 boats, despite agreeing with Whipple when he noted that smuggling is not a death-penalty offense. There\u2019s no moment where she\u2019s described as grappling with the repercussions, only a detached willingness to make Trump\u2019s agenda a reality.<\/p>\n

When Wiles was first tapped to be chief of staff last year, I wrote that it was \u201csomething of a cursed reward for Wiles\u2019 loyalty throughout the campaign\u201d and wondered if she\u2019d survive in the role. The answer is a much more resounding \u201cyes\u201d than I\u2019d expected. She told Whipple that she\u2019d initially meant to stay for six months, the same as Priebus. Instead, she might outlast Kelly\u2019s 16-month tenure. <\/p>\n

But given that my concerns were mostly centered around when and where Wiles would choose to draw a line in the sand against Trump\u2019s authoritarianism, her ability to thrive as chief of staff then is less a testament to her skills than her willingness to keep her head down and say \u201cyes\u201d to whatever her boss says.<\/p>\n

Read more Why this Florida \u2018grand conspiracy\u2019 investigation is ringing legal alarm bells<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pair of Vanity Fair articles paints a portrait of a White House chief of staff who is so pliable to the point of becoming insubstantial. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nSusie Wiles is Trump\u2019s perfect enabler-in-chief - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=73\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Susie Wiles is Trump\u2019s perfect enabler-in-chief - Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A pair of Vanity Fair articles paints a portrait of a White House chief of staff who is so pliable to the point of becoming insubstantial.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=73\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Long Distance Movers USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-27T08:12:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0206dfa2bde56a4792f75b5b97027e43\"},\"headline\":\"Susie Wiles is Trump\u2019s perfect enabler-in-chief\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-27T08:12:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73\"},\"wordCount\":1213,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/4e13d491fc2bfe33c4e02fce81fb2dae.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"US\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/longdistancemoversusas.com\\\/?p=73\",\"name\":\"Susie Wiles is Trump\u2019s perfect enabler-in-chief - 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