During his victory speech at Palm Beach in Florida this week, Donald Trump beckoned his election campaign manager, Susie Wiles, on stage. “Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you,” Trump told the audience.
“The Ice Maiden, we call her the Ice Maiden.” Trump asked Wiles if she would like to say a few words and she immediately shook her head. “Susie likes to stay in the background,” he repeated. “She’s not in the background.”
Yesterday, Donald Trump elected Wiles, 67, as his chief of staff, in his first major appointment as president-elect. Wiles will be the first ever woman to hold the role, propelling her from the shadows of the Trump campaign into the political limelight. In a statement on Thursday evening, Trump said that Wiles was instrumental to his election victory and is “tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected”.
Wiles is a veteran political operative, with a career spanning over 45 years. She has been a key figure in the background of Republican strategies from across the spectrum, dating all the way back to Ronald Reagan’s era. She is a self-described moderate. “I come from a very traditional background,” she told Politico earlier this year. “In my early career things like manners mattered and there was an expected level of decorum. I don’t curse. I’m polite.” How, then, did a mild-mannered moderate Republican board the Trump train?
Wiles was born Susan Summerall and raised in New Jersey. She has two brothers and her father, Pat Summerall, was an American Football player and NFL commentator. She is a member of the Episcopal Church and has two daughters with her ex-husband Lenny Wiles, who is also a Republican consultant. According to CNN, Wiles is a keen birdwatcher and bakes pound cakes for her grandchildren.
After a stint working as an assistant for Republican representative Jack Kemp, Wiles joined Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign aged 23 as a scheduler. Since then she has worked behind the scenes for multiple Florida politicians, from mayors and governors to presidential candidates.
In the summer of 2015, Wiles became co-chairwoman of Trump’s Florida campaign. As an establishment Republican, some who knew her were shocked.
"I actually tried to talk her out of it. I didn't think it would be good for her," said John Delaney (the former Jacksonville mayor who Wiles worked for in the nineties) to The Tampa Bay Times in 2016.
But when Wiles was questioned by the same newspaper over Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct and generally “boorish behaviour”, she was unequivocal in her support for him: "The Donald Trump that I have come to know does not behave that way, and the lens that I look at him through, I don't see any of that. I see strengths, I see smarts, I see a work ethic that is unparalleled."
Trump was still seen as an outside horse in the Florida primaries, with mainstream Republican figures like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio pipped to win. But Trump prevailed and went on to win the presidency. Delaney credited Wiles with having “an uncanny nose for the mood of the people”.
A longtime friend of Wiles told The Independent that while on a personal level she possesses a “southern grandmotherly kindness”, she is a ruthless political strategist. “Susie does not f*** around,” they said. “There is no other way to say it. It’s not that she’s hard, it’s not that she’s mean, but if you try to promote yourself or if you flimflam or you’re not honest about something, Susie will knife you herself.”
Perhaps no one knows this better than Ron DeSantis, who Wiles helped get elected as governor of Florida in 2018. The pair then fell out and DeSantis urged Trump to cut ties with her ahead of his 2020 re-election campaign. Wiles did not take this lightly and helped Trump trounce DeSantis when they ran against each other in the Republican presidential primary this year. Trump’s campaign against DeSantis was characterised by personal attacks and nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious”.
“Susie is a supremely talented woman in a male-dominated arena,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told CNN. “Her ability to navigate tough political environments to execute campaign goals and deliver Republican victories is unmatched.”
In 2021 when the Trump campaign was in chaos post the January 6 Capitol attack, Wiles was called on to whip the operation into shape. And Wiles’ influence helped Trump’s 2024 campaign become a streamlined, serious operation.
“Trump world is dynamic and volatile and innovative and ever-changing, and Susie is the rock,” Florida’s Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who has known Wiles for years, told CNN in 2022.
Her magic as Trump’s right hand woman has been to neutralise some of his more harebrained instincts through commanding his respect and organising behind the scenes. “It is impossible to manage Donald Trump, but it’s very possible to help Donald Trump. She understands that her job is to be the chief helper,” a Trump ally told Politico in June.
While she has been an essential cog in Florida politics for over four decades, Wiles is a relative Washington newcomer, and as Chief of Staff she will be undertaking her first major role in government. Now all eyes will be on her to see how she steadies the Trump ship from the foreground of the political arena.
