On Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump made his first appointment for his administration by tapping Susie Wiles as the White House Chief of Staff. The appointment scripted history as Wiles will be the first woman to serve as White House Chief of Staff.
Sixty-seven-year-old Wiles was Trump's campaign manager for the 2016 and 2020 elections, and the one credited with orchestrating his political comeback.
A chief of staff is one of the most important White House posts and is seen as the one who controls his administration, including access to the President. He\she is viewed as a partner to the president.
Wiles, a political veteran from Florida with over four decades of experience, is known to shun the spotlight, preferring to stay behind the scenes, a trait that made her a Trump favourite. So much so that she rarely shows up in pictures or speaks on the record, according to The Politico.
She is also one of the few people who can manage Trump and tell him the hard truths. Her operations gave Trump's campaign a professional makeover, though the former president routinely went overboard and off track.
She also ran Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida governor and briefly served as the manager of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign. It was her support that helped Trump become the GOP's presumptive nominee and not Ron Desantis, and later the second stint in the White House despite the criminal indictments and the party's poor show in the 2022 midterms.
"She is the most valuable political adviser in the country," Senator Joe Gruters, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, told The Politico.
So much so that Trump praised her calling them "tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected."
"Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again. It is a well-deserved honour to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud," Trump said in a statement.
Wiles has been Trump's important adviser for the last three years, which means the White House stint will be an extension of what she has been doing.