Trump's 'Ice Maiden' Has Spent a Long Time in the Background

In a profile earlier this year, Politico described Susie Wiles as "the most feared and least known political operative in America." But Wiles, co-chair of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, is about to get a much higher profile: Trump has named the 67-year-old as his White House chief of staff. She will be the first woman in the position since it was created 78 years ago during the Truman administration.

• Decades of experience. Wiles has some 45 years of political experience, though Politico notes that it is largely in running campaigns, not governments. She worked for Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign less than a year after she entered politics, the BBC reports. She worked for Dan Quayle in 1988. In 2012, she worked for Mitt Romney's campaign after briefly managing Jon Huntsman's campaign. She also helped Rick Scott become governor of Florida in 2010. Wiles has also worked as a lobbyist, and was still registered as one for a tobacco company earlier this year.

• Her history with Ron DeSantis. Wiles ran the Trump campaign's operations in Florida in 2016 and helped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis win in 2018, but after a rift developed between the two, DeSantis urged the Trump campaign to cut its ties with her in the 2020 campaign, the AP reports. Wiles later returned to Trump's orbit and became CEO of his Save America PAC in 2021. She had her revenge when the Trump campaign crushed DeSantis' 2024 presidential bid. The Trump campaign taunted "pudding fingers" DeSantis with inside information that many suspected came from Wiles.
• Her family. Wiles is the daughter of legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, who spent 10 years in the NFL with teams including the New York Giants. In his memoir, Summerall, who died in 2013, credited his daughter with helping him recover from alcoholism, Politico reports. Her first job in politics was working for Republican Rep. Jack Kemp, one of her father's former Giants teammates.

• "Ice Maiden." "Susie likes to stay in the back, let me tell you. We call her the ice maiden," Trump said in his victory speech in West Palm Beach. The Telegraph reports that when Trump "beckoned her to the microphone, she politely declined to step forwards, leaving a reluctant Chris La Civita, her co-campaign manager, to thank her instead."
• Overseeing Trump's comeback. Politico credits Wiles with overseeing Trump's political comeback after he left office in 2021, noting that she "has even had success reining in Trump, stepping in at times to get him back on message or to see why some of his decisions could be tremendous political liabilities." Reuters reports that she "kept damaging media leaks to a relative minimum, launched a bold and successful strategy to win over some Latino and Black voters and led the former president to a decisive win."
• Staying power. Trump went through four chiefs of staff in his first term but Wiles might have more staying power. The New York Times notes that she has "shown an ability to survive Mr. Trump's chaotic management style" and is the only campaign manager to have made it through an entire Trump campaign.

(More Donald Trump 2024 stories.)