Meet the bird-watching grandmother set to rule the White House

Wiles came on board in March 2021, first to run Trump’s Save America fundraising committee, and then from November 2022 managing his re-election efforts by calmly introducing a sense of discipline towards staffing, spending and messaging that was sorely lacking in his previous campaigns.

She is so good at it that he has asked her to take the most powerful administration post in the nexus of political power in Washington.

“Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history and was an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns,” Trump said.

“Susie is 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.”

The White House role will make Wiles the gatekeeper to the Oval Office for politicians, lobbyists and diplomats and give her an integral say over policy and many appointments.

The trickiest part of the job — as the four men who emerged bruised from it in Trump’s first four years could attest — will be managing the demands and impulses of the commander-in-chief himself.

However, Wiles knows what she’s doing. Some of those who know her believe the key to understanding her ability as a Trump whisperer lies in the relationship that she had with her late larger-than-life father, Pat Summerall, a titan of American sports culture.

Summerall played for the New York Giants NFL team and went on to become a beloved broadcaster who commentated on 16 Super Bowls and 26 Masters tournaments. In his autobiography he credited his daughter with the tough love that helped him overcome a life-threatening addiction to alcohol.

A former associate of Wiles said: “What she learnt being the child of someone who’s the centre of all the attention, a famous person, an alcoholic — that gives her a unique ability to manage these really big ego politicians. She’s a fascinating woman, very capable, very unassuming.

“She’s not the one out partying, she’s not the one out raising money or doing events at all hours, but she’s always working, always thinking about what she’s going to do next.”

Wiles was born and brought up in New Jersey. After attending the University of Maryland her career in politics began with the help of her father as an assistant to one of his former teammates, Jack Kemp, a former Giants quarterback who became a congressman for Buffalo, New York. She worked as a scheduler for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign and later took the same role in his White House.

She married Lanny Wiles, a Reagan “advance man”, who scoped out locations for presidential visits, and they moved to Ponte Vedra Beach on the northeast Florida coast where they had two daughters. They divorced in 2017.

Wiles built her reputation working for successive mayors in nearby Jacksonville, the state’s most populous city, where she left an indelible mark.

“Susie led two of Jacksonville’s most significant initiatives,” said Steve Diebenow, a former chief of staff to the mayor, John Peyton, when Wiles was chief of special initiatives and communications.

“One was called the preservation project, the largest urban park system in the United States. It’s over 50,000 acres. Susie was the thought leader who created that and then administered it,” he said.

“The other was the Jacksonville journey, which reduced the murder rate in Jacksonville by around 30 per cent. That’s her skillset. She can help her executive leader to develop and implement policy across a wide range of topics.”

Diebenow said that he was “blown away by what she has accomplished”, adding: “It’s remarkable but not surprising. She’s uniquely capable and qualified to marshal Trump’s team and resources in a way that achieves his goals.”

A lifelong conservative viewed by those who know her as a moderate and traditional Republican, Wiles worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign in Florida and in 2009 became the manager of an unlikely bid to become state governor by the venture capitalist Rick Scott.

She was the driving force behind his successful election the following year which established her as a sought-after political consultant. This led her to meeting Trump for the first time in 2015 to discuss a new role running his campaign in Florida, which was then viewed as a swing state.

It was not all plain sailing. After some poor early opinion polls, Trump summoned Wiles to his Miami golf resort where he told her “I don’t think you can do this job”, and in her presence told his staff to “find me somebody else”, the New York Times reported.

She refused to abandon the campaign, however, and after winning the state Trump offered her an uncharacteristic apology. Wiles reportedly said: “We can’t do that again.” Trump replied: “We won’t have to.”

Then another longshot governor candidate wanted her help. “Ron DeSantis was trailing and everyone thought he was going to lose. Susie Wiles saved his campaign,” said Jim Clark, a senior politics lecturer at the University of Central Florida. “Then he pushed her out … Got to be one of the worst political moves ever.”

Despite DeSantis hailing her in his victory speech as “really the best in the business” there was a fateful falling out. A Florida political insider said: “DeSantis got Susie Wiles fired because [his wife] Casey DeSantis thought that Susie was leaking stuff to the media.”

This was denied by Wiles but the insider said she was known for her relationships with select Florida journalists. DeSantis reportedly did not want Trump to re-hire Wiles but Trump had another election to fight in 2020 and he took her back. Florida under her management was one of the few states where Trump increased his vote.

When DeSantis challenged for this year’s Republican presidential nomination, Trump had inside knowledge of his rival.

Wiles knew about DeSantis’s vulnerabilities: stories began to emerge about his platform shoes, of DeSantis and his wife insisting on private flights, even of DeSantis eating chocolate pudding with his fingers. As DeSantis prepared to drop out after losing the Iowa caucus to Trump, Wiles made a rare post on social media: “Bye, bye.”

Wiles brought a key lesson she learnt in the 1980s from Reagan’s top aide Michael Deaver, telling Politico: “You stick to the message until it sinks in. Say it and say it and say it, and reinforce it with actions until it sticks.” So Trump and his advertising team relentlessly hammered on the dangers of unvetted migrants coming into America under the Democrats, which was reinforced by the eye-catching proposal for mass deportations.

Trump’s nickname for Wiles struck a chord with Ed Newberry, one of Washington’s best-known lawyer-lobbyists. Wiles gave him an early break, hiring him to represent Jacksonville in the capital.

“The president called her ice maiden — she’s unflappable, she’s extremely focused, she’s extremely hardworking. She accomplishes what she sets out to accomplish. She’s also one of the nicest people you will ever meet,” Newberry said. “The country is very well-served by having Susie Wiles as the chief of staff.”

As for what impact Trump and Wiles could have on America, look no further than the effect they have had on Florida. Before Wiles managed Trump’s 2016 campaign it was a perennial nailbiter of a swing state.

This week, Trump won it by a 13-point margin, turning it into a deep red comfort zone for the Republicans.