Consider This from NPR - Can Susie Wiles keep Trump on track?

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Susie Wiles is doing something no woman has done before. She is the first in history to hold the position of White House Chief of Staff. Now, we will find out if she can do something that no one — man or woman – has ever done before: Impose discipline and order on a Trump White House that was rife with leaks, drama, and by many accounts – chaos – during his first term. A chief of staff can be the difference between a ground-breaking presidency and chaos. Is Susie Wiles up to the task?For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.orgEmail us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Anyone hoping to understand how President Trump's new White House might operate got an early clue last month. It was a shot by a Reuters photographer on the House floor as Republican members wrangled over who should be speaker. Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had an iPhone up to her ear, but you could read the name of the caller on the screen, Susie Wiles, Trump's campaign co-chair and incoming chief of staff. Trump brought her on stage on election night for his victory speech. Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice maiden, we call it the ice maiden. That's right, as the ice maiden nickname suggests, Wiles is praised by Trump allies for her calm under pressure and for her ability to work effectively from the background. As demonstrated in that phone call with Marjorie Taylor Greene during the House speaker vote,

Trump's preferred pick, Mike Johnson, ultimately did win, winning over Republican holdouts. The honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives for the 119th Congress. Consider this. A chief of staff can be the difference between a groundbreaking presidency and chaos. Is Suzy Wiles up to the task? From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's consider this from NPR.

Suzy Wiles is doing something no woman has done before. She is the first in history to hold the position of White House Chief of Staff. And now, we will find out if she can do something that no one, man nor woman, has ever done before. And that is impose discipline and order on a Trump White House that was rife with leaks, drama, and by many accounts, chaos during his first term. For a look at Suzy Wiles' chances, I'm joined

now by journalist Chris Whipple. He's the author of several books, including The Gatekeepers, How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. Welcome. Great to be with you. Great to have you. So, so I understand that at one point you had interviewed

every living White House chief of staff. Is that still true? Yeah, no, it is true. I interviewed all 17 living White House chiefs of staff for my book, The Gatekeepers. This was just before Trump came into office and afterwards I interviewed Reince Priebus as well. So I can't say that I've interviewed every living chief to date, but I have interviewed

the latest one, which is Suzy Wiles. Yeah. Well, as someone who has thought a lot about the job of chief of staff, just describe what is the job? What does it entail in its essence? Well, it's absolutely critical to the success of a presidency. Every modern president has learned often the hard way that you cannot govern effectively without empowering a White House chief to do a number of things,

but most importantly, to execute your agenda. You know, Jimmy Carter, for example, was a president who thought he could run the White House by himself. It wasn't until the last year of his presidency that he finally appointed a real chief of staff. Donald Trump never got it during the first four years of his presidency. I don't think he ever understood the role of the White House chief, but Suzy Wiles is going to try to change that. Yeah.

Let's talk about Suzy Wiles specifically and what you're noticing so far. I mean, before she even became President Trump's chief of staff, she was the co-chair of this presidential campaign. And I know that you follow Trump's campaign closely. You have a forthcoming book about it. What did you learn about Suzy Wiles from her time in that role? Well, she's an absolutely fascinating character. You know, she cut her teeth as a 23-year-old scheduler

for Ronald Reagan, later worked in his labor department. But she really spent most of her political career, really all of her political career, in Florida. She was indispensable to Donald Trump's success in Florida. And he made her his 2024 co-chair. And she has this uncanny ability to impose some discipline on Trump's disorder. And that's going to be, of course, the ultimate test for her in the Trump White House. Well, now that she is White House Chief of Staff, you know, what we've seen just during the first week of Trump 2.0 is something vastly different, right, from the first week of his

first term, like the administration unveiled and implemented a blizzard of executive actions with tremendous speed and efficiency. Do you attribute that to Suzy Wiles in particular or to a whole host of advisors? I think it's too early to say to what extent this is Suzy Wiles and how much of it is Trump. You know, I would question the efficiency, as you put it. I mean, I think the so-called shock and awe has been certainly distracting, maybe effective in some cases. But it's no formula for long-term success in the Oval Office.

I'll never forget Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's third chief of staff, once told me that President Clinton used to have a thousand great ideas every day, and I'd have to turn them around, walk them back into the Oval Office and say, Mr. President, you and I agreed that we were going to do five or six things. If you stick to that, I can set up the focus and the structure to get that done. But you can't do a thousand things. That's something that Trump is going to find out, or not. He really didn't learn much about governing in his first four years. Danielle Pletka Let's talk about those first four years and how the role of chief of staff fit

into Trump's world because during those first four years, what he had like four different chiefs of staff, none of them were able to impose order. Why not? He did. He turned through four White House chiefs of staff. Part of it, the big, the major part of it is that Donald Trump has never really understood the position. I was amazed when he appointed his fourth White House Chief, Mark Meadows, and he said that Meadows was going to be his Jim Baker. Jim Baker, of course,

was the legendary Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan. And I finally realized what he meant. He thought he looked like Jim Baker. There was no resemblance between any of Donald Trump's Chiefs of Staff and the great White House Chiefs of Jim Baker, Leon Panetta would be too, for example. And that was really the major problem. He never empowered a White House Chief to execute his agenda and tell him what he doesn't want to hear, which of course is the most important thing. So what do you think Suzy Wiles could do differently from her predecessors to make the relationship different than that relationship between previous chiefs of staff and President Trump?

So I think Suzy Wiles brings a couple of advantages that her predecessors never had. I mean, I mentioned this uncanny ability she has to work with Trump. She seems to choose her fights carefully, maybe too carefully. I mean, most White House chiefs would have thrown their body in front of that decision to pardon 1,500 insurrectionists.

The other thing is that I think temperament is an underrated part of being White House Chief of Staff. And Susie Wiles has it. She has charm and abundance, and she's going to need every bit of it to be successful. Well, I want to talk about a potential third person in this relationship, Elon Musk, because even before Trump was sworn in, we saw Elon Musk wading into a legislative fight over a government funding bill ahead of Trump. How do you see Wiles managing the Musk-Trump dynamic?

Very carefully, I would say. And we've already seen, to some extent, Suzy Wiles giving a sharp elbow to Musk. I think that she's already made it clear that he's not going to have an office in the West Wing. So round one to Susie Wiles, really. But it's going to be a fascinating dynamic to watch because I'm told that early on during the transition, it was really Trump and Musk and maybe Don Jr.

They were essentially spitballing cabinet nominees and they were the ones who came up with Matt Gaetz and Suzy wasn't in the room. Well, to be an effective White House chief, she's going to have to be in the room for those decisions. In fact, an empowered White House chief really should be going to have to be in the room for those decisions. In fact, an empowered White House chief really should be the last person in the room. Chris Whipple. He is the author of the gatekeepers and also of the forthcoming Uncharted, how Trump beat Biden, Harris and the odds in the wildest campaign in history. Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

in history. Thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan with Audio Engineering by Jimmy Keely. It was edited by Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yennegan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.