Politics
Susie Wiles Out as Trump Chief of Staff; Stephen Miller Set to Take Over
Susie Wiles is stepping down as White House chief of staff, with hardline immigration adviser Stephen Miller poised to replace her in the top staff job.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles is leaving her post, and Stephen Miller â the architect of the administration's immigration crackdown â is set to succeed her, according to reporting on the transition.
The shake-up puts one of the president's longest-serving and most combative advisers in charge of the West Wing's day-to-day operations, a shift that signals a sharper, more aggressive posture heading into the next stretch of the term.
Wiles, a veteran Florida political operative who managed the president's campaign, was the first woman to hold the chief of staff job. She was widely credited inside the administration with imposing discipline on a famously freewheeling operation and with managing relationships on Capitol Hill, where her relationships with Republican senators were seen as an asset.
Miller, by contrast, has built his reputation as a policy hardliner. A senior adviser who has shaped the administration's deportation and border enforcement agenda, he is known for pushing aggressive executive action and for his willingness to take on the press and entrenched bureaucracy. His elevation to chief of staff would place a policy warrior â not a traditional legislative manager â at the center of the White House decision-making process.
The move is likely to be read as a statement of priorities: that the president wants his second stretch defined by confrontation and rapid action rather than by the more conventional staff work Wiles favored. Supporters of Miller argue that the administration needs exactly that kind of fighter to cut through a hostile media and a resistant federal workforce.
Critics, including many in the legacy press, are already expected to sound alarms about the shift. But for a president who has long valued loyalty and results over process, the choice fits a pattern.
The timing of Wiles' departure and the formal announcement of Miller's appointment were not immediately detailed. The change at the top of the staff hierarchy is nonetheless one of the most consequential personnel decisions of the term, with implications for how the White House negotiates with Congress, manages the agencies and communicates its agenda to the country.