Trump replaces Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller as chief of staff after GOP’s midterm defeat

Wiles, the steely political operator and longtime adviser to Trump, was the first woman to ever serve in that post.

Wiles’ departure comes almost immediately after the GOP’s midterm thrashing on Tuesday. She will be replaced by Stephen Miller, a longtime trusted aide to Trump.

The departure also came months after Wiles indicated she no longer showed evidence of breast cancer after she underwent months of treatment for the disease, a diagnosis she went public with in March 2026.

Wiles is the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Trump, who cycled through four of them during his first four-year term.

Miller is one of Trump’s closest and longest-serving advisers, jumping on board during his longshot 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter. He currently serves as White House deputy chief of staff, and though he has a wide-ranging portfolio, Miller is most closely aligned with Trump’s immigration policy and rhetoric on immigration.

Miller is a former aide to hardliner former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who would go on to serve as Trump’s first attorney general.

Wiles brought order to Trump’s campaign

The veteran Florida operative joined Trump’s team during his 2016 presidential bid to run the campaign in his adopted home state. She performed the same role again in 2020 before overseeing the entire 50-state effort in 2024. She is the second woman to lead Trump’s presidential campaign to victory, although she never embraced the formal title of campaign manager.

Wiles, 69, has been credited with steering the most disciplined of his three presidential bids, and Trump himself has said he was often told that Wiles led his “best-run campaign.” Often called the “ice maiden” by the president, she was seen as the no-brainer choice to serve as White House chief of staff at the start of his second term.

She cut her reputation as someone who brought discipline to the president’s chaotic style and shunned the spotlight, so much so that at Trump’s 2024 election night victory party, she repeatedly shook her head and avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

Wiles showed unusual candor in an interview

But in December 2025, nearing the end of Trump’s first year back as president, Wiles became the headline when Vanity Fair magazine published a series of interviews with her and other top Trump administration officials conducted by the author Chris Whipple, an expert on White House chiefs of staff.

The Wiles interviews stuck out for their candor, which is unusual for a sitting White House chief of staff. She said Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality,” although the president does not drink, and said then-Attorney General Pam Bondi had “whiffed” in her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files while remarking that Vice President JD Vance has been a “conspiracy theorist for about a decade.”

Trump and other administration aides rushed to defend Wiles, who in turn disparaged Vanity Fair for publishing what she called a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” although she did not deny making the comments that were attributed to her.

In the interviews, which were conducted over a period of several months, Wiles also revealed a bit of her management style, saying she was “not an enabler.”

“I try to be thoughtful about what I even engage in,” Wiles said. “I guess time will tell whether I’ve been effective.”

Trump grinded through four chiefs of staff in his first term: Reince Priebus, who Trump fired after just six months; John Kelly, who served the longest at 17 months; Mick Mulvaney, who held the role for a little over a year in an “acting” capacity; and Mark Meadows, who served as gatekeeper for the 10 months before Trump left office.

Wiles overcomes personal health struggle

In March 2026, Wiles revealed she had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and she juggled surgery and treatments alongside her demanding job.

Six months later, she said she was “cancer-free,” indicating she no longer showed evidence of cancer after her pathology results came back clear. On social media, she thanked her family, friends, doctors and “everyone who prayed for me, checked in, and supported me along the way” and gave special thanks to Trump for his “unwavering support.”

“She’s tough,” Trump said of his chief of staff in an October 2026 event at the White House. “She’s a tremendous fighter.”

In a rare October 2026 interview, Wiles told Fox News Digital that she hadn’t been planning on getting the mammogram that ultimately detected her cancer, because she wasn’t due for one for several more months. Her doctor suggested she do the exam anyway, because a mammogram machine was available that day and her schedule was too busy and unpredictable.

“Had he not encouraged me to do it that day, I would have gone back to work and probably not thought about it again until July,” Wiles told the outlet. “We would be having a very different conversation in that case. Four months may not sound like a long time, but with cancer, early detection matters. I will always be grateful to my doctor for knowing me well enough to insist.”

Wiles is a seasoned political operative

In addition to Trump, Wiles also ran incumbent Sen. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign. She spearheaded Ron DeSantis ’ successful run for governor in 2018, but DeSantis would eventually urge the Trump campaign in 2020 to cut ties with Wiles, creating a rift that led to a particularly vicious effort by those in Trump’s orbit to mock DeSantis throughout his failed run for the Republican presidential nomination against Trump in 2024.

Wiles, the daughter of the late NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall, also worked in the offices of former Jacksonville mayors John Delaney and John Peyton. Her first White House job was as a scheduler for President Ronald Reagan.

In addition to her government and campaign positions, Wiles has worked as a lobbyist. She was a partner at Florida-based Ballard Partners, which rose to prominence in Washington during Trump’s time in the White House. Her varying list of clients included General Motors, a trade group for children’s hospitals, homebuilders, and the city of Jacksonville.

She was also registered as a lobbyist for the Venezuelan television network Globovisión, which was owned by businessperson Raúl Gorrín, who was charged in Miami with money laundering. The firm later called its work for Gorrín a mistake and said Wiles had almost no role in managing the relationship with Gorrín.

Seung Min Kim, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Trump replaces Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller as chief of staff after GOP’s midterm defeat

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