Trump Names Stephen Miller to Replace Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff – The Epoch Times

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller – The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump on Friday announced that Stephen Miller will become his chief of staff to replace Susie Wiles, who will be moved to another position.

The news follows significant Republican losses in the midterm elections.

Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff and a vocal proponent of the administration’s mass deportations policy agenda, will become the chief of staff starting on Nov. 9, he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

As for Wiles, who was his campaign manager before joining the White House, Trump said she will be moving to the “Trump Political operation.”

“I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job,” he wrote.

In a post on X, Wiles wrote that Friday “is my last day as White House Chief of Staff” and that “serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime.”

“I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” she added. “More than anything, I’m grateful for the extraordinary people I’ve had the privilege of working alongside.”

“While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will.”

A White House official told The Epoch Times that Wiles submitted her resignation on Thursday evening.

On Friday afternoon, Trump told reporters that he “wanted to make a change” with Wiles’s departure.

“I think Susie’s done a very good job, great job. But I just wanted to make it. Stephen’s been great, and … we gotta make moves. Sometimes in life, you have to make moves,” he said.

Trump added that Miller has “been with [him] from the beginning” and will “do a great job” managing White House operations.

The move comes as some figures on the right have called for Wiles to be removed in the wake of GOP midterm losses that handed control of Congress to Democrats.

“I think that you have to look to people like Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, and the political consultants that are there … because of the results, they should be removed and removed immediately,” Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House aide and Trump campaign manager, said in an interview with journalist Steven Edginton released on Friday morning.

Caroline Sunshine, a former staffer to Trump, told Fox News on Wednesday that Wiles “needs to resign” and said that “her campaign skills have not translated into governing.”

Responding to the announcement that Miller is now Trump’s chief of staff, some Democrats in Congress criticized the move.

“Stephen Miller is the most dangerous person in Trump’s administration and should be fired instead of promoted,” wrote Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) in a post on X. “Americans overwhelmingly voted to end the chaos and lower costs. Stephen Miller has done nothing but sow hatred and foster corruption.”

Miller has been a chief proponent of the second Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“Americans voting overwhelmingly for mass deportation,” he said in an interview with CNN earlier this year. “Congress passed laws requiring it and then passed new legislation to fully fund it. The response of the Democrat Party and its activists has been to support and orchestrate violent resistance against federal law enforcement.”

Before the midterm elections, Miller also focused on what he suggested was Democratic-run states’ reluctance to check whether people on voter rolls were citizens.

“Not one Democrat state — not one — has either a.) checked the citizenship status of their voter file or b.) shared their voter records with [the Department of Homeland Security] to check citizenship. The total number of illegal and non-citizen voters is astronomical,” he said on Nov. 1.

Earlier this year, Wiles confirmed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer before she announced in September that she was free of the disease.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

1.1Decades-Long Political Career

In December last year, Forbes named Wiles, 69, one of the world’s 100 most powerful women, in its latest ranking.

Wiles placed 66th for leading a successful presidential campaign that contributed to Trump’s 2024 victory. Soon after the election, Trump appointed her as chief of staff, making her the first woman to hold this position in U.S. history.

Over the past two years, Trump has publicly praised his chief of staff for her work and influence.

“Most powerful woman in the world. She can take out a country, destroy, take out a country with one phone call,” Trump joked in a speech last year.

In March 2021, Trump hired Wiles to serve as CEO of his Save America Leadership PAC. Then, along with Chris LaCivita, Wiles co-chaired Trump’s victorious 2024 presidential campaign. The architect of multiple successful Florida gubernatorial campaigns, Wiles also helped Trump win the Sunshine State in both 2016 and 2020.

Throughout her career, Wiles has worked for prominent Republicans, including Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney, Rick Scott, and Ron DeSantis.

Wiles began her political career as a staff assistant to Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) from 1979 to 1980. She then served as deputy director of scheduling for President Reagan’s 1980 campaign and as special assistant to the president from 1981 to 1982.

Years later, Wiles started managing election campaigns for prominent GOP figures. She first led Rick Scott’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign in Florida, helping him narrowly defeat Democratic opponent Alex Sink.

When Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) ran for president in 2012, Wiles served as co-chair of his Florida advisory council. She also briefly managed the 2012 presidential campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

Wiles was also credited for rescuing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign when he was still a little-known congressman. She worked as his senior adviser from September 2018 until January 2019. However, after DeSantis’s 2018 victory, tensions arose between Wiles and DeSantis, and they parted ways.

1.2Past Lobbying Ties

Shortly after her appointment as White House chief of staff, Wiles faced scrutiny over her connections to Chinese companies, primarily due to her background as a top lobbyist. News organizations, including RealClearInvestigations, reported that her former firm, Mercury Public Affairs, had lobbied for Chinese companies.

Wiles served as co-chair of global public strategy at Mercury Public Affairs from February 2022 until she left to manage Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Public filings from that period listed two major Chinese corporations as Mercury’s clients: JinkoSolar and Hikvision USA. Both companies faced tariffs and sanctions for helping the Chinese communist regime.

The U.S. government imposed strict sanctions on Hikvision, citing its surveillance cameras being used for human rights abuses and military activities.

Meanwhile, JinkoSolar faced scrutiny, investigations, and U.S. import bans due to links between its solar panel supply chains and state-sponsored Uyghur forced labor programs.

Emel Akan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.