‘Ice Maiden’ finally steps down after midterm rout... Trump replaces first female chief of staff

[Financial News] Susie Wiles, 69, who became the first woman in U.S. history to serve as White House chief of staff, stepped down shortly after Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in the midterm elections. Although she was a key aide who helped Donald Trump return to the presidency, there is speculation that she was effectively forced out after the election defeat. Some observers have also suggested that infighting within the White House played a role in her replacement.
On the 6th (local time), President Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that Chief of Staff Wiles would be moving to Trump Political Operation. He appointed her successor: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has led efforts to pursue hard-line immigration policies.
The appointment came three days after Republicans lost their majorities in both chambers of Congress to the Democrats in the midterm elections on the 3rd. It was the first personnel change across the White House and Cabinet since the election.
Speaking to reporters at the White House that day, President Trump said he wanted to make a change. The move is being viewed as the start of a personnel shake-up following the midterm election defeat.
The possibility that Chief of Staff Wiles would be replaced had been discussed even before the election. As Republican prospects in the midterms worsened last month, talk of a replacement spread within the White House and the administration, and reports even emerged of a contest for the position.
There were also reports suggesting that President Trump had excluded Chief of Staff Wiles from major decisions. In particular, he reportedly did not consult her in advance when nominating Katie Zachariah as White House press secretary.
Misconduct allegations involving former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Chris LaCivita, whom Chief of Staff Wiles brought on board during the 2024 presidential campaign, also fueled talk of a rift. After President Trump said he would cut ties with them, speculation arose that his relationship with Wiles may have fractured as well.
During the election campaign, President Trump emphasized his full confidence in Chief of Staff Wiles and denied rumors that she would be replaced. But after making the appointment following a bigger-than-expected midterm defeat, he prompted speculation that Wiles was being made to shoulder the blame for the loss.
The New York Times (NYT) reported that on election night, with several people looking on, President Trump pressed Chief of Staff Wiles and his political advisers over responsibility for the crushing defeat. There were also claims that an internal power struggle in the administration had played a role in the replacement.
Kelly Means, a former adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appeared on a Joe Rogan podcast interview released just before the announcement of Chief of Staff Wiles’s replacement. In the interview, Means alleged that some people in the administration had acted in the financial interests of their families, and named Wiles and her daughter.
Means alleged that Wiles had accepted lobbying from the food and pharmaceutical industries to secure campaign funds and had spearheaded decisions at odds with the policy direction of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. Means also suggested that Katie, Wiles’s daughter, who works at lobbying firm Continental Strategy, had served as a link for the lobbying in question.
These were claims made by Means, while Wiles’s camp countered that opposing forces were deliberately targeting her.
According to NYT, people close to Wiles countered that there was an effort to blame Wiles for the failure of the election strategy led by President Trump. They also claimed that information related to her daughter’s lobbying activities had been circulated to undermine Wiles’s standing.
Chief of Staff Wiles played a key role in President Trump’s 2024 election victory. A longtime aide in Florida politics, Wiles joined Trump’s campaign team and focused on organizing it and managing his outbursts and unpredictable behavior.
In the 2024 election, Wiles served as a co-chair of the campaign and helped lead it to victory. President Trump even nicknamed her the ‘Ice Maiden’ because she rarely showed emotion and handled her work coolly.
Chief of Staff Wiles was recently diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and is receiving treatment. President Trump had earlier disclosed her illness himself, saying she had decided not to delay treatment and would begin it right away.
An interview with U.S. monthly magazine Vanity Fair, published last December, sparked controversy when President Trump was described as having “the character of an alcoholic.” At the time, Trump indicated that he did not take issue with the remark.
Meanwhile, Wiles’s successor, Miller, is a longtime ally of President Trump and a key adviser who has developed hard-line immigration policies. During his first term, Trump also appointed four White House chiefs of staff in total, including one acting chief.

[email protected] Kim Ye-ji Reporter