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- [00:02]
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- [00:30]
Michael
screen her presentation is that everything that went wrong for Donald Trump in the first administration was the result of a fractious White House staff. Success depended on Trump being able to do what Trump wanted to do. Let Trump be Trump. He doesn't want her on television. He feels she does not look the part. She's the most unimportant important person or important unimportant person. She knows in that classic kind of way which you often don't find in politics, she knows her place.
- [01:17]
Joanna
Michael. Joanna, I am very excited about this episode because we are doing a deeper dive than usual into a character that I am really fascinated and I know you know a lot about the most
- [01:34]
Michael
important unimportant person in the nation, or maybe the most unimportant important person in the nation.
- [01:42]
Joanna
Okay. Who's almost never speaks on television. She's kind of silent, unlike normally people in this role who use the role to bolster themselves in some way. But she appears not to do that. Do you want to reveal the name of our subject?
- [02:02]
Michael
Well, it's Susie Wiles, who is Trump's chief of staff, which makes her, in any traditional hierarchy, certainly the second most important person in the United States government. Now, whether she is or she isn't actually is part of our discussion today. But she really occupies a pivotal position, and because it is under Trump, of a very tricky, problematic position that tends to get people killed off rather quickly. So she's on the verge of the. Trump's longest chief of staff. Serving chief of staff was John Kelly, former General John Kelly. And. And he served for just about a year and a half. And that was a deeply, deeply unhappy term both for him and for Trump. But so far for Susie Wiles, it's actually quite. Has been quite a copacetic position. I mean, she's not only survived this long and will certainly surpass John Kelly, but she could go for all four years.
- [03:34]
Joanna
All four years. Well, and as we know, she had an alcoholic father, which she has talked about who was a sportscaster and a
- [03:42]
Michael
famous, famous sportscaster, actually a sort of pivotal person in television sports.
- [03:50]
Joanna
Right. So she has extreme experience of handling a megalomaniacal type figure, I imagine her father was, but certainly a famous figure. And women used to dancing on the edge of that are often very capable of dealing with, I think, people like Donald Trump. But before we get into that, why don't we explain for anyone new listening to Inside Trump's Head, where we go on a regular three times a week basis, what we're trying to do here. Why are we different to other podcasts? I often ask myself that, but I think we know.
- [04:30]
Michael
I never asked myself that because it seems completely apparent to me that most of the world analyzes Trump in rather traditional terms. He's the President of the United States. This is how politics functions. This is how governments function. The people who talk about these subjects know very well all of the levels of how one traditionally looks at the president at the center of politics, of government, of his party, all of the pressures that are on him, all of the essentially cause and effect matrix that makes him do what he does. Our position is that none of this matters. This is a government of one. Trump doesn't care about politics, doesn't care about government, has no advisors, so really responds to no one, has no goals in the traditional sense of an agenda that a president wants to accomplish. Everything he does comes out of what he wakes up in the morning thinking. So it is all out of Trump's head. Therefore, to understand what he's doing, we need to be inside Trump's head.
- [06:02]
Joanna
Well, even a government of one needs a support staff around them. And Susie Wiles appears to be, at least for the time being, a crucial cog in the, in the Trump government wheel. We mentioned that her father was Pat Summerall, who she's often referred to as an alcoholic. We know that he was a player. He was a phrase I still find as originally a Brit, very confusing, a tight end in the NFL, and then he became a commentator and sort of brought the NFL alive for American viewers. So it's not like she grew up somewhere and came out of nowhere. But nevertheless, she certainly run Trump in a different way to traditional chiefs of staff.
- [06:51]
Michael
Well, I think I'm going to push back on that, that she runs Trump. And that would reasonably have been said about most traditional chiefs of staff. That was their job. Their job was to protect the president. Their job was to advise the president. Their job is often to steer the president. I mean, it is the person behind the throne. And often that's the person who makes the difference between a successful presidency and a failed presidency. And there's a traditional kind of thing. Who should your chief of staff be? Well, your chief of staff should be someone whose intelligence and acumen you respect and more importantly, trust. So, and that often adds up to who's one of the people closest to you. A friend, personally or professionally. And one of the major differences here with Trump is that he doesn't have that person. He's never had that person. Arguably, he has no friends. Arguably, he has nobody he trusts. So then that has become a. That makes it very difficult. Then who do you put into this, into this role in which you have to depend upon on someone and trust them. And believe them and have someone who's going to work in your best interest. In the first Trump administration, that was a grievous problem. Nobody. He could find nobody, no chief of staff to do that job in a way that he was comfortable with and a way that he found helpful and actually in a way that he did not find utterly antagonistic.
- [08:48]
Joanna
Well, he went through several. Right. Reince Priebus, who came out of the rnc, then he went through General Kelly. And when Kelly emerged from the White House, he seemed, I mean, Kelly himself seemed extremely bitter and angry about the experience.
- [09:04]
Michael
Traumatized, really traumatized that this was. And full of, I mean, essentially, he openly, you know, a top ranking, a top ranking general who was in this role and basically came as close to vilifying Trump and to declaring him. Well, everything that we discuss here, Trump's stupidity, Trump's lack of interest in virtually anything, his refusal to absorb information.
- [09:36]
Joanna
I mean, it would, I mean, it's. One shouldn't laugh. I'm always saying one shouldn't laugh, but it's impossible not to laugh. I mean, listen, he was, John Kelly not only trashed Trump, which is something very unusual for a general to do, but he was one of the signatories of the campaign in the 2024 election which said, this man is unfit for office. Do you remember there was a whole list of generals who worked alongside Trump who just said, do not do this
- [10:04]
Michael
Again, one of those other interesting things, how does Trump recover from this? The person who has worked most closely with him comes out and publicly disavows him. And what effect did that have on Trump? You know, literally none.
- [10:20]
Joanna
Well, and Trump ever. Well, and Trump immediately trashed him, too. I mean, they both trashed each other. It was just so unspeakably. Well, it was just sort of so wrong for it demeaned the office of the presidency, however he now has in place Susie Wiles.
- [10:40]
Michael
Well, just go finish the two other. After John Kelly came Mark Mulvaney, who was previously the head of the Office of Budget and Management. And Mulvaney, who I spent a fair amount of time with, is a totally, extremely conservative, but a reasonable, thoughtful person. And he refused to take the title of Chief of Staff. He made it clear he was always the acting Chief of staff because he was ready to escape at any minute.
- [11:16]
Joanna
What a smart thing to do. Just put acting in front of the title.
- [11:20]
Michael
Yes. And he did have to escape short, shortly, in short, short order. And then, and then Mark Meadows, who was a congressman, a, a senior person in the Freedom Caucus, which is the Congressional caucus of the most right wing people, but also someone who I've spent time with and, and thought, well, this is, you know, this is a, you know, I'm a total right winger and unreasonable in that, but actually reasonable in person, a professional. And his tenure, well, his tenure, and it was interesting because he was in that job on January 6, one of the few people left in the White House with the president on January 6. But he understood that, that the job was to stay as far away from the President of the United States as possible. That was the only ticket of survival. So he became, I'm not sure I would say an ineffective chief of staff because in their, in each, in their way are ineffective, but a chief of staff who understood that there were very clear limitations on what he might possibly do.
- [12:49]
Joanna
All right, well, that brings US to Trump 2 very different scenario. Trump has learned that the only thing he wants from people from his cabinet secretaries, from the staff around him is utter 100% loyalty. He doesn't want what happened in Trump one, which is people worked for him, then came out and immediately trashed him. We've talked about John Kelly and then you remember Rex Tillerson, who was his first Secretary of State, saying that Trump was an absolute moral, I mean, just shockingly basic descriptions of the president too. So how does he bring Susie Wiles into the fold? Where does she come from in Trump world?
- [13:29]
Michael
Okay, so she's, she is a, a Florida political operative from Florida. Her entire career has been spent with campaigns in Florida. Senior campaigns in senior positions. You know, she's a, she's a well known person in Florida politics. You hire you, you hire her. If you're running for office and you need someone to run your campaign, she's a political operative. And so she comes into the campaign the first campaign. And that's Trump. And her job is in 2016 to run the state of Florida for.
- [14:17]
Joanna
And we should, shouldn't we point out that she actually got Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, elected in an unexpected victory.
- [14:27]
Michael
Was that before or after?
- [14:29]
Joanna
No, that was before. That was 2010.
- [14:31]
Michael
Yes.
- [14:32]
Joanna
So just, just one of her achievements.
- [14:34]
Michael
She's a senior person, highly respected in Florida politics. She's not a, you know, she's not a super right winger, not a super conservative. She's a professional. What is her job? Her to win it is not an ideological job. She comes into the Trump, she's hired for the Trump campaign. 2016. Trump meets her, has a brief conversation with her, goes back to his aides, actually I think it was Steve Bannon at the time and says she looks like a refrigerator. Get rid of her. They don't get rid of her because she has a good reputation. They don't get rid of then really they have nobody else to replace her with. They don't get rid of her and she flips the state. So Florida, which previously had been a, I mean several instances of voting for a Democrat for president, actually more likely to vote for a Democrat for president or to come very close, as in Bush V. Gore in 20,000, but she flips it decisively for Trump in 2016. Really? Really. The moment in which he, he wins the election. She then goes on after that to run Desantis campaign. And they have a terrible, terrible in the annals of Florida politics, memorable falling out. And it's hard to get an actual explanation for what happened here, but everybody accuses the others, including of stealing and perfidy, of all kinds of.
- [16:29]
Joanna
So Florida politics as usual.
- [16:31]
Michael
Yeah. And they end up with a kind of blood score against her. Okay. Meanwhile, Trump is defeated in 2020. He goes back to Mar a Lago. His expectation is that his son in law, Jared Kushner, will basically be his right hand man in defeat, his assistant, his whatever, chief of staff. Let's say Jared wants nothing to do with that role. No way is he going to get stuck with his father in law and in his time in the wilderness. And Jared retreats to Miami and puts in Susie Wiles. He's the person who hires Susie Wiles the refrigerator to run Trump's office at Mar A Lago. Now this is not a big job. I mean, you know, she has had considerable jobs, elected governors and senators in Florida, but at this point she's 66, I think. So, you know, politics is a, so to speak, young man's game. And this is a pretty good job. She's, she's, you know, she's, she'll run Trump's out of office office. And, and it's a, it's a kind of a retirement job.
- [18:03]
Joanna
I've never heard anybody say American politics is a young man's game recently because it seems full of the gerontology.
- [18:11]
Michael
Political operatives, okay.
- [18:12]
Joanna
Oh, political operatives, okay. They're full of the GE Gerontocracy.
- [18:16]
Michael
Yeah. No political operatives. It's a young man's game because it's so hard, the job, to be a political operative. First thing, you're at the beck and call of an idiot. And not just Trump. Most politicians, I mean, really, that relationship between the candidate and the people who work for them is almost, is often a toxic relationship.
- [18:43]
Joanna
I was going to say it's often abusive.
- [18:45]
Michael
Yeah, but you're on the road all of the time. The accommodations are terrible, the food is terrible, the hours are grotesque. So it is, you know, it is hard to be. It is hard. It is hard to do this with any level of, of, of maturity because then you say, well, this is. Life is, life is too short, at any rate. But she gets this job, it's not a bad job for her to be in the, in Mar a Lago. It's a nice environment, not too pressured. You know, what's Trump going to do? He's going to, you know, endorse a few candidates, make a few speeches. You know, that's, that's what a, what a, a former president does. Well, obviously something else happened here. And at which point it becomes, it becomes highly relevant that she has this blood fight with DeSantis because Trump is in part prompted into the race because he is furious that the governor of Florida, DeSantis, who he always maintained is the governor because Trump endorsed him, would have the temerity to run against him to become the alternative to Donald Trump. So their campaign begins. And also Wiles is very focused on the fact that, that she has an opportunity for vengeance against Ron DeSantis.
- [20:15]
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- [20:44]
Joanna
And we shouldn't forget that Ron DeSantis really did seem like a viable candidate at one point. I mean, certainly the Murdoch press were behind him. He did well keeping Florida open during COVID And yet his personality seemed to get in the way. Do you remember his terrible decision with the don't say gay bill in Florida? He just having come out of COVID sort of ahead, just began to make one mistake after another.
- [21:14]
Michael
Well, he's just an unpleasant person in every way and radiated his unpleasantness. But you're right. And there's a moment, I think it's in the fall of 2022 when the new York Times analyzes his, his numbers. I guess it's just after the midterms when he's resoundingly reelected as Florida's governor. And the Times goes through the numbers and basically says, well, with numbers like this, at this point in the cycle, he will be unbeatable. But the Trump team, led by Susie Wiles at this point goes to work, goes to work against him and not only beats him, but basically destroys him and his political future. And she runs a very efficient campaign, a very tight campaign, efficient campaign. She does this her co. Head of the campaign. And that's always a little bit of attention. Is he co ordinated Co minus is this guy, Chris La Civita. She also has. The third member of the campaign was Jason Miller, who had been, is a loyal, trusted, loyal Trump lieutenant. And with very little friction in the campaign. Very little. It sometimes seemed effortless even. I mean, Trump is still playing throughout the, throughout the campaign. He's doing 18 holes of golf every morning. Of how many candidates, presidential candidates, can that be said? And as we know, obviously, they win. And it's very clear, I mean, there's a slight bit of jockeying, as there always is, about who's going to be the chief of staff. And of. Susie Wiles says it's not her. She doesn't want to be the chief of staff. She's a grandmother. It's time to go home. But of course, she does want to be the chief of staff and in fact, in a very strategic way, pushes out everybody else who might challenge her. Chris Lacivita does not get a job in the White House. Jason Miller decides not to pursue a job in the White House. And it is Susie Wiles and her deal with Trump. And basically, to the extent that she makes a presentation, why me? Why it should be her? Her presentation is that everything that went wrong for Donald Trump in the first administration was the result of a fractious White House staff. Success depended on two things, in her view. Trump being able to do what Trump wanted to do. Let Trump be Trump and him not to be frustrated by internal internecine squabbling at every single minute. And you have to remember how bad the first administration was. I mean, these people within the, within the West Wing would have killed each other. I mean, between Bannon and Kushner, Gary Cohn, Kellyanne Conway, whoever, John Kelly, Reince Priebus.
- [25:12]
Joanna
Well, and random people from the Apprentice who showed up
- [25:18]
Michael
totally Dina Powell. I mean, this was every, every day, every single day somebody could have killed somebody else.
- [25:30]
Joanna
And that division was very much playing out in public too, which made them look really like they were amateurs.
- [25:36]
Michael
Enormous churn the door, everybody getting fired constantly. I mean, we often talk about now that nobody has been, in more than a year, nobody has been fired.
- [25:50]
Joanna
So can I just ask you something? Because one of the things Susie Wiles did in her earlier career was she worked in the Reagan administration learning scheduling, which is something that political operatives do. And it teaches you a lot about access and about the control of access. To what extent is she the main gatekeeper for Trump? Now?
- [26:12]
Michael
I think this is important because she is not interesting. And what she has managed to do is to absent herself from Donald Trump's immediate circle. So she runs the West Wing, she runs the staff, but she's very clearly does not run Donald Trump. So to some extent he's doing his own scheduling. To some extent he's, he's relying on Stephen Miller, you know, a few, a few other people who are suggesting and you know, a lot of the scheduling is of course pro forma. And it's just, and it's just, you know, waving in whoever gets online to see him. And that will somewhat go through Susie Wiles. But again, on the pro forma side, on the side where it has Trump occupies Trump's mind share. She's not getting involved in that.
- [27:28]
Joanna
So is the reason that this White House has been so much more effective in getting the stuff done that Trump wants to get done because of Susie Wiles?
- [27:39]
Michael
No, I would say it's because of, because of Trump. In other words, Trump is, I mean, yes, it's because of Susie Wiles in which she doesn't. She takes whatever Trump says as the orders, pretty much unquestioning. That's what's going to happen today. And there's very little pushback on that and very little second guessing of that. But all that comes from Trump when it would have otherwise come from a chief of staff.
- [28:12]
Joanna
So I'm not quite sure I understand what she is running. If Trump is basically running Trumpism and doing all the things that he wants to do from Venezuela to now Iran. What does running the White House actually mean?
- [28:28]
Michael
Well, as I said, if you Compare it to Trump 1, to Trump 2, Trump won was this incredibly fractious White House staff, which was always working against Trump in one way or another. And if you then trade that out for a staff that is entirely or as much as possible runs smoothly in a very clear hierarchy. Susie Wiles is in charge of the White House staff. She's not in charge of Donald Trump, she's in charge of the White House staff. These are the people who basically, yes, are responsible for carrying out Donald Trump's whims, desires, momentary inspirations, Long term policy, what all, all of, all of, all of that. And they are, and they answer to effectively one person who is Susie Wiles. And to the extent that they answer also to Donald Trump, that would be Stephen Miller, for instance. Susie Wiles is deft enough not to try to compete with that.
- [29:52]
Joanna
So psychologically, what is it about Susie Wiles that allows her to get on with Trump? And I mean, I guess there's the obvious observation that she's a woman and the first four chief of staffs were all men. But how do they actually get on? What's she like when she's with him?
- [30:13]
Michael
Deferential. She, she listens, never interrupts. She is more like an office manager.
- [30:26]
Joanna
And she's never on television. I mean, you don't see her in the way that if you think of Rance Priebus was often on television. John Kelly was often on television. She doesn't seem to be searching for a spotlight on herself.
- [30:41]
Michael
I mean, there's a sort of background. He doesn't want her on television. He feels she does not look the part. So we're back to the refrigerator.
- [30:54]
Joanna
Well, I was going to ask you about that because she seems so un maga in terms of her presentation. She's got a hairstyle much like the old Queen of England, actually. I mean a sort of shampoo and set, a gray hair.
- [31:05]
Michael
And she's, we should just check her age at the moment. But I think it's, I think she's 67 or 68 and a grandmother and very much out of character for any of the women who surround Trump.
- [31:25]
Joanna
Right. She's completely un Maga. She's 68, so she's a lot older than certainly the younger women who the Margot Martins, the Natalie Harpes, the sort of Melania, the much younger versions of Melania who runs the sort of office. But she's also unlike Kristi Noem, she's unlike Ivanka in terms of how she presents.
- [31:50]
Michael
No, I mean, you know, Trump, when he was in Trump Tower and running the Trump Organization, always had a loyal assistant, loyal secretary then. And her name then for many years was Rona Graff. And very much in, in this, in the mode of Susie Wiles. Highly competent, highly organized, highly deferential, totally on the same on the page that Donald Trump wanted her to be on. And that's Susie Wiles accomplishment. That's why I say she's the most unimportant, important person or important unimportant person. She knows in that classic kind of way which you often don't find in politics. She knows her place.
- [32:52]
Joanna
And how do other Republicans think of her? Because you've mentioned he calls her the refrigerator, partly to do with the fact that she does seem to choose a lot of ice type colors, although I suspect he's more referring to her shape. But she's also known as the ice maiden within certain layers of the Republican Party. How does John Thune, how do Mike Johnson think of her?
- [33:21]
Michael
I don't really think that they have strong feelings. I mean, she isn't really a gatekeeper and she isn't really someone imposing policy. She's a conduit.
- [33:35]
Joanna
It.
- [33:37]
Michael
And you know, if, if you, I mean, she's a good person to have on your side, but because she does, and I think it's also important to remember she has no real ideological position here. You can't say she's a MAGA person. You can't say she's a, she's a Trumper. You, you know, in, in actually classic terms, she's a pretty traditional rhino type. I mean, she's a traditional Republican.
- [34:08]
Joanna
So traditionally, as we've said, also the people closest to Trump don't last, or certainly in the previous administration they didn't last. Is Susie the exception to this rule? Does she stick around for the duration, do you think?
- [34:21]
Michael
Well, I think that prompts the question of what could. Where is she vulnerable? And, and curiously, I think she's probably vulnerable on the midterms. I mean, the midterms have the potential to be a seismic event. And usually when that happens and when the seismic event threatens to bury you, which might very well happen here, somebody has to pay. There then is incredible pressure to change course, to. Dig your way out. And that often implies you have to have different new people to do it. You've been buried because of the people who are in place. So therefore you have to get rid of them.
- [35:18]
Joanna
Okay, but for example, in a Recent podcast, you talked about how The Vax and RFK Jr. S more eccentric ideas, well, terrifyingly eccentric ideas on public health were being reined in because they understood, A, the numbers aren't good, B, people are getting measles, but C, it's not going to play well in the midterms. Is that Susie Wiles giving that information to Trump? How is he getting that information? Or is she reigning in RFK Jr is she telling him, you can't talk about that.
- [35:50]
Michael
She is the One reigning in RFK Jr. Is she getting. Where is Trump getting that information? She may be supporting that, but she's not going to initiate that information that that view is coming from, from Trump on the telephone.
- [36:09]
Joanna
Okay, so people are talking to him
- [36:12]
Michael
and they're saying, and saying this VEX stuff is really not playing. And then he may ask for stuff. How's this, how's this VEX stuff playing? Are any polls on any VAX polls? But that's also problematic in Trump terms because Trump basically asks for polls to confirm what he wants confirmed. So he's coming into this. He's picking up that this VAX stuff is not playing. And most of the people that he speaks to, who are likely Republican billionaires, and they're going to, I mean, and they are not MAGA people, and they are people who clearly are saying, what the devil is this VAX stuff going on? This is crazy. My kids are getting vaxxed. My family is getting vaxxed.
- [37:05]
Joanna
Right. They don't want their grandchildren getting measles. So is Susie Wiles able to deliver Donald Trump bad news?
- [37:15]
Michael
No, Nobody delivers Donald Trump's bad news. That's why she would. And she most of all would understand that's. That's not a good look. So Trump gets. I mean, it's an important aspect of this administration. Trump functionally and fundamentally gets no bad news. Even if the news is bad and even it has to be delivered, it's delivered actually, as though it were good news. So she is what Susie Wiles does. And perhaps this goes to being a woman in that role.
- [37:52]
Joanna
Ah, the Amagonset noon horn.
- [37:55]
Michael
It's noon.
- [37:57]
Joanna
I love that sound. So funny. It's wonderfully small town.
- [38:02]
Michael
So she is. And again, perhaps because she's a woman, she is versed in handling him. And it's all about handling where other chiefs of staff, it's all about decision making in a kind of hierarchy of information and management and executive function. With Susie Wiles, it's about handling a very, very difficult guy well.
- [38:40]
Joanna
And as she said recently to Chris Whipple, who interviewed her 11 times for a piece in Vanity Fair, because she was used to dealing with an alcoholic father, she could deal with Donald Trump, who refers to himself as an alcoholic's personality even though he doesn't drink. So she's used to that. Treading on eggshells, to looking for warning signs for being triggered by anything that makes Donald Trump feel uncomfortable.
- [39:10]
Michael
You know, during the campaign, people would speak to me about. About. About Susie. And with relative respect, I would. I would say, I mean, this is people. People in the campaign or satellites to the campaign. But they always, always pointed out that she was more concerned with. With herself and her operation, the press, it got, the management structure of it than she was with the president. And what people said about Trump and what people said about Trump and how he functioned even within the overall campaign. So she saw this as almost as a parallel function instead of an intersecting function. She was not running him. She was not taking him over. She was not instructing him. She was not informing him. She was not his interface with the world. She was someone who had created this organization to support him. So, so incredibly, you know, and I think we can, you know, smart. She has been. She has. He. She has played this the only way you might successfully play it, right?
- [40:47]
Joanna
And it seems to have brought some stability, at least to the organization that, as you say, I mean, incredible stability.
- [40:54]
Michael
I mean, I mean, that is what's the difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2? The stability of the organization around him.
- [41:05]
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- [41:35]
Joanna
Okay, so for the billionaires that Trump is talking to and his deal guys, is Susie talking to them first? Do they call her and say, hey, what's the big guy, you know, thinking about? Or, hey, how do we get him to think differently about vaccines? Or, hey, we're worried about the midterms. We want deregulation. The Democrats get in, it's all over.
- [41:55]
Michael
No, no.
- [41:56]
Joanna
So she's not advising any of those people. They're not.
- [41:58]
Michael
Well, she might be confirmed. They're speaking to him first.
- [42:02]
Joanna
Right. Okay. And then any of them calling her. Does she have. What I'm asking is Is she back channeling anything? Does she talk to people at Fox News? Because we know he watches Fox and then takes policy ideas from it. Is she talking to people all the time at Fox? Fox?
- [42:19]
Michael
You know, I wouldn't say all of the time at Fox. Yes, she is there. And some people after they speak, to speak to Trump are then, are then, then calling, calling her. And they probably have a particular agenda about, about what they want her to, to do or what they want her to support about their agenda. And similarly at Fox, the key people at Fox are speaking directly to Trump.
- [42:55]
Joanna
So Sean Hannity follows him regularly.
- [42:58]
Michael
They might follow up with Wiles in terms of scheduling something or in terms of who the White House might make available to Fox. So she's very much, and would very much see herself and want her to be seen as a logistical person, which then, by the way, highlights this other really interesting aspect about the Trump administration and how Trump functions is that so many people have direct access to him. So again, he is, and he would say this, who is his real chief of staff? He's his real chief of staff.
- [43:45]
Joanna
Well, as we know, the only person he listens to is himself. Who's maga? It's Donald Trump. I am maga. What's to stop him starting any kind of war? Only him. His morality stops him from doing it.
- [43:59]
Michael
So she would not presume to be inside of Donald Trump's head. Head. At the same time, she has paid close attention to what is inside Trump's head and she responds to that. And she never crosses that. She knows what he needs, what he expects, And, and the kinds of things that will create friction. So she creates no friction. So she's the perfect, literally the perfect assistant.
- [44:44]
Joanna
Okay, so she's the perfect assistant. So she's anticipating when he's hungry, she's anticipating when he needs a lie down. She's like an assistant slash nanny, because for the most part, he does behave like a child.
- [44:57]
Michael
Yes.
- [44:58]
Joanna
I wonder if she ever comes in and says, it's time for some quiet time, Donald, you need a timeout.
- [45:03]
Michael
No, because that would be an incursion.
- [45:05]
Joanna
Right. And that would be telling him off, which she's not allowed to do.
- [45:08]
Michael
She's not doing. She's not telling him anything. And she's, you know, very good, you know, very, you know, make the trains run on time. So logistics are her forte. I mean, he was very pleased with her during the campaign. I mean, not least of all, I mean, one of her main things, because she kept close watch on the spending and he often Says with pride, she's very cheap.
- [45:41]
Joanna
She's very cheap. How much?
- [45:42]
Michael
She's very cheap. So she says she's very cheap. She doesn't spend my money.
- [45:46]
Joanna
How much does she get paid? Do we know?
- [45:51]
Michael
I'm sure it's public. I don't, I don't, I don't know, but it is, it is. You know, I mean, it's, it's a government salary. Yes, it's a government salary. And she could, and many people who have this role, of course, go on to make bazillions of dollars off of it, but I, I, I'm not sure. And, and, and Trump, that's actually another interesting point, because Trump resents the possibility of that. Any idea that Trump has that you're making money off of him. Makes you somehow disloyal to him and an antagonist. And I think with Susie Wiles, it is quite possible that she leaves this job and then does go into some
- [46:47]
Joanna
form of retirement with her grandchildren.
- [46:51]
Michael
So, again, all of this kind of thing creates a context which works for Trump, which I actually think he's surprised about. He's surprised that this grandmother is as successful as she is in acting in his interests. He would not have, have, this is not someone he would have. If he had been doing the casting, which in some sense he is always doing, he certainly would not have cast her.
- [47:23]
Joanna
Well, it's fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And, of course, whether or not she'll be the sacrificial lamb at the midterms if they lose the House to the Democrats, or even if they lose the House and the Senate to the Democrats. Yeah.
- [47:35]
Michael
And I suspect that she won't be. I mean, it's a point of vulnerability. But she's very, very good, as we've seen at Survivor Survival here. She has been close to Trump now, effectively his chief of staff since 2022, so almost four years now.
- [47:54]
Joanna
And what sort of relationship does she have with the First Lady? With Melania Trump?
- [47:59]
Michael
I think she has no relationship or a very functional, businesslike relationship.
- [48:08]
Joanna
And what did she make of Elon? Remember, I mean, again, we've all forgotten this, but Elon Musk with his chainsaw, coming in for the first three months of the Trump administration with Doge, that seemed to come and go very quickly, and we've all forgotten about it and no one talks about it anymore.
- [48:23]
Michael
Yeah. And I think that that's partly because of her. I think she navigated that. I think that that was a, she recognized that that was dangerous for all kinds of reasons, and it existed because of Trump was having a, you know,
- [48:42]
Joanna
a, A crush on Elon Musk, the
- [48:44]
Michael
richest man in the world. Yes, yes. I was going to say a flirtation or a, or a kind of an infatuation. It felt like a brain freeze about this and that this would, that this would pass. She just had to manage it. And I think, I mean, I mean, I think that many people or, or a group of people around trauma. Trump understood that this was just something that had to be endured and then it would come to a natural end, which it did.
- [49:18]
Joanna
So we know that she worked for Marco Rubio. Assuming the Democrats win the House in the midterms and possibly the Senate, all eyes will be on Trump's successor. Do you think Susie will have an influence, though?
- [49:38]
Michael
Well, I'm thinking how this will play because the factors are the following. Yes, she is a Marco Rubio partisan. She has worked for Rubio. She was the voice that was really advocating Rubio for the vice presidency. And then the voice, when she understood that that had reached its limits, she became the voice advocating for J.D. vance. But in this situation, yes, I think that she would very clearly be the Rubio partisan. But very clearly, if she goes this far, would understand that in the end, Trump is not going to want anyone to take to at all compromise his position, his position in the Republican Party, his position in history, his position in whatever he does, in whatever role he wants to assume next.
- [50:49]
Joanna
It's fascinating. Well, Michael will continue to talk about Susie Wiles, but I think very helpful to have a sort of strong sense of who she is, what she's actually doing at the White House, and why Trump is being so much more successful in getting things done in this second administration. And you really don't hear people coming out and trashing him in the way that they used to. She's brought a level of discipline which.
- [51:12]
Michael
No, I mean, it is highly disciplined. I mean, first thing, one would be even hard pressed to name the significant people in the West Wing at this point. James Blair, a highly significant person there, but who has heard of him? A guy, Taylor Butovich, who she got rid of. I mean, she had brought him in and he became a kind of an irritating upstart and important figure. But then she quietly dispatched him. So she is running this White House operation in such a distinctly different way than the first White House, the first Trump White House ran. And again, letting him be him, everybody else in that first White House, it was like, Trump is an uncontrollable force who we have to control. That's our job here. Virtually everybody in the Trump White House saw their job, their challenge, their opportunity to control Trump. Susie Wiles, the exact opposite. Her job, her opportunity, and her place in history comes from not remotely trying to control this guy.
- [52:46]
Joanna
All right, so if you have comments about Susie Wiles or questions for Michael about Susie Wiles, why don't you put them in our comment field in YouTube? Feel free to join our beast tier of Daily Beast YouTube subscribers. And we'll be back. We'll be back in two days. We'll be back in two Days with more. But Suzie Wiles, eh, of course. It's a woman over 60 who's running the place. Of course it is. I don't find that remotely surprising.
- [53:18]
Michael
No, I mean, it's a kind of of brilliant piece of reverse chemistry.
- [53:26]
Joanna
So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. Thanks to our production team. Devon Rogerino. Ryan Murray. Rachel Passer. Heather Passaro. Neil Rosenhaus.
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Michael
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