President Donald Trump sits with Susie Wiles as he attends a football game at Acrisure Stadium, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Evan Vucci/Pool via REUTERS
President Donald Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, are increasingly at odds, a fact brought to light by the disastrous response to the late hiring of his now-former White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia.
"The first hint of trouble came after Trump hired the disastrous Zacharia as his press secretary to replace Karoline Leavitt," reported The Independent's Alex Hannaford on Sunday. "This was apparently against Wiles’s wishes and seen by many insiders as Trump deliberately undermining his chief of staff’s decision-making. In the end, Zacharia lasted just five days as White House press secretary, making her the shortest-serving person in the role’s history. While Wiles seems vindicated, the unilateral decision by the president reveals a much bigger power struggle playing out at the heart of the West Wing."
He added, "As a midterm blowout for the Republicans beckons, the mood is turning darker by the day, with everyone jostling for position in terms of what comes next and “finger-pointing” already happening, according to officials’ comments seen by CNN. Trump’s reported disapproval with Susie Wiles can be traced back to his open displeasure over business dealings involving her daughter Katie and other members of Wiles’s inner circle with a far-right, pro-Russian government in the Balkans."
Hannaford then talked with a journalist who has dug deep into the stories involving Trump's relationship with Wiles.
"It is a story that journalist Chris Whipple, who wrote the explosive Vanity Fair article on Trump’s inner circle in December, has been following closely," Whipple told Hannaford. "His story, Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the 'Junkyard Dogs,' was the result of extensive interviews with Wiles that took place over days, so he is familiar with the inner workings of the president’s closest team."
Hannaford added, “I think Trump is annoyed and probably p*ssed off,” Whipple tells The Independent. “And I’m sure he’s made that clear to Susie – and I’m sure Susie’s not thrilled by it either. Here's Trump in dire political straits heading into the midterms and one of his key political advisers is on the other side of the world trying to elect a Russian-learning Bosnian.”
This is not where the story ends either.
Hannaford wrote, "But though the Republika Srpska story – and the Wileses’ involvement in it – apparently did not sit well with Trump, Whipple doesn’t think it’ll ultimately impact his chief of staff."
Whipple told Hannaford, “I don’t think Susie Wiles is going anywhere – at least not any time soon. I think the ‘chief is dead’ story is this perennial favourite that the press corps loves to gin up. I just think Susie Wiles has a kind of magic over Donald Trump that no one else has. He trusts her in a way that he trusted none of her predecessors.”
Despite the tension between them, Wiles is widely regarded as a salutary influence on the president.
The Bulwark's Andrew Egger recently described Wiles as Trump's "secret weapon" for "running the tightest managerial ship that Trump has got to enjoy. So, even though Trump has got to enjoy [running] on this insane kind of flattery system where it's all about social currency in the eyes of this one insane man, the president, and just remaining in his good graces by bringing him good news and paying him a compliment, and all of those sorts of things. Even though that is all true, it is also true that, functionally, the White House runs better, more tightly, with less knocking in the engine than it ever did in his first term. Less infighting, less leaking. A lot of that is down to Susie Wiles."