AGI – Newly elected President Donald Trump‘s first appointment was that of Susie Wiles, his campaign manager, as ‘chief of staff’, the most important unelected position in the White House and for the first time awarded to a woman. In her victory speech, Trump said that she “just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history” and that “she’s tough, she’s smart, she’s innovative, and she’s universally admired and respected.”
Wiles, 67, a New Jersey native, is a longtime Republican political strategist and President-elect Trump has called her the “Ice Maiden.” In the 1970s, he worked in the Washington office of New York Congressman Jack Kemp. Less than a year after he began working in politics, he joined Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign before her 1980 election. She was an advisor to two mayors and various candidates in Florida and worked for Congresswoman Tillie Fowler.
In 2010, he helped turn Rick Scott, then a businessman with little political experience, into governor of Florida in just seven months. Scott is now a United States senator. Wiles met Trump during the 2015 Republican presidential primaries and became the co-chair of his campaign in Florida, whose victory in the state helped him win the White House.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who put her in charge of his winning run two years later, described Wiles as “the best in the business.” In 2021, he sharply criticized Trump after the January 6 attack on the Capitol by the tycoon’s supporters. To then become the guru of the electoral campaign that led Trump to victory in 2024. His choice denotes that the US president-elect wants to be supported by a person who knows him well, with whom he has worked closely and who understands his modus operandi. Wiles also helped the tycoon deal with lawyers in his various criminal and civil cases. The 67-year-old grandmother, daughter of the late American football player and radio host Pat Summerall, described herself as coming from a “traditional” political background.
