Stephen Miller starts Monday after Bannon called for removals over election losses
President Trump had spent weeks polling his friends on how Susie Wiles was performing as White House chief of staff before he replaced her, according to people familiar with the conversations. On Friday, Trump said in a Truth Social post that longtime adviser Stephen Miller would start in the role on Monday, with Wiles moving to the president’s political operation.
In the post, Trump called Miller one of his most trusted advisers. Wiles, who has served as chief of staff since the beginning of Trump’s second term, was the first woman to hold the job. “I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff—She has done a great job!” Trump wrote of Wiles.
Wiles said in a statement on X that Friday would be her last day. She wrote that serving the president “has been the honor of a lifetime” and said that while her role may be changing, her “commitment to the President and the mission never will.”
Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon called Friday for Wiles to be removed from her post. “I think that you have to look to people like Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, and the political consultants that are there…because of the results, they should be removed and removed immediately,” Bannon said in an interview with British journalist Steven Edginton.
Wiles is departing at a political low point for Trump. Republicans lost a net of at least 41 House seats and at least seven seats in the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm election, including in deep red states like South Carolina and Kansas. Democrats will return to power in both chambers of Congress next year.
Miller, 41, has been with Trump since the 2016 presidential campaign. In Trump’s second term, he has played a leading role in fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to carry out mass deportations and close the southern border. Political strategists said the president’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement led to a backlash among Latino voters, contributing to Republicans’ electoral losses this week.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Miller has overseen some of the White House’s most controversial moves. In January, moments after federal officers fatally shot Alex Pretti, Customs and Border Protection officials texted Miller, who posted on X that the slain ICU nurse was a “domestic terrorist” who had “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.” The description set off alarm bells inside the White House, according to the Journal.
Wiles, who was Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager, lasted longer than any of Trump’s first-term chiefs of staff — Trump went through four in four years. The Journal described Wiles as standing out for her steely and even-tempered demeanor in a White House crowded with talkative men with large egos. Trump calls her the “Ice Maiden.”
Wiles, 69, began working for Trump in the aftermath of his loss in the 2020 presidential election and became a central figure in orchestrating his political comeback. She is a veteran Republican political strategist and campaign operative who began her political career in 1979 working for Republican Rep. Jack Kemp before joining Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign. She went on to work on President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign before settling in Florida, where she built a long résumé as a political consultant and lobbyist. She managed Rick Scott’s successful 2010 campaign for governor and worked on the presidential campaigns for Jon Huntsman Jr., Mitt Romney, and Trump in 2016.
In March, Wiles disclosed that she had breast cancer, and in September said she was cancer-free. Wiles is the latest among several senior officials to leave the administration. Trump’s White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced her departure in August. The president has yet to name a permanent replacement.