This time, it’s different — probably in large part due to Susie Wiles.
The first time around, President Trump had four chiefs of staff. All of them were well-known Beltway figures but, to Trump, all of them were relative strangers. With four different styles. And four different networks of friends and contacts. Which led to four different shakedown cruises and, at the end and not at all surprisingly, to a chaotic term in office and a weak case for reelection.
As a reckless man once said — this time, it’s different.
• Let me tell you about Susie Wiles. She has in recent weeks become famous for not being famous. No Sunday shows, no Vogue covers, no on-the-record celebrations of self and sacrifice.
• Wiles has paid her dues. She was a junior-junior aide to Jack Kemp, who hired her as a favor to her father, Kemp’s pro-football friend, Pat Summerall. She married Lanny Wiles, the legendarily diligent advance man for Ronald Reagan. She worked campaigns, getting her first break in 1995 as campaign manager and then chief of staff to Jacksonville mayor John Delaney. He was the last comprehensively successful mayor in the city’s colorful history. In public esteem, John Delaney stands shoulder to shoulder with Andrew Jackson.
In 2010, Wiles took on the seemingly hopeless gubernatorial campaign of newcomer Rick Scott, who according to an early poll was known to 8 percent of the electorate. (Thanks to preemptive Democrat strikes, some of that 8 percent knew him as “scandal-ridden health-care executive Rick Scott.”) Scott listened carefully to Wiles, wrote large checks, worked his skinny butt off, and, come that November, was on his way to Tallahassee. Wiles was on her way to the Hall of Fame.
• Just one more Wiles story, to suggest why so many people here in Florida respect and/or fear her. After the Scott miracle, Wiles was Queen of the Hill. She didn’t scratch for business. She sifted offers. She carried Florida for Trump twice and, in between, she was called in to save the floundering 2018 DeSantis campaign for governor. She saved it, of course, but in doing so found herself crosswise with the governor-elect’s formidable wife, Casey. (Nobody has ever accused Ron DeSantis of being uncomfortable around strong women.) The strain intensified, finally reaching the it’s-me-or-her phase. DeSantis did the decent (and perhaps the only) thing and sided with The Missus. He fired Wiles.
Time passes. Memories linger. In 2022, DeSantis won a big reelection, leading an historic down-ballot sweep that included 16 Republican representatives. As expected, he then pivoted to national politics and a presidential campaign. Step One was to get his home-state ducks in a row. Guess how many of those 16 representatives-elect, more than a few of whom were clinging to the governor’s coattails only weeks earlier, stepped up to endorse him? One. That’s right, freshman Laurel Lee, who used to work for DeSantis. And who I’m pretty sure will not be working for Donald Trump.
• So how’s it going thus far? I like the way Wiles is rolling out the names early, while the Election Day iron is still hot. Zeldin for EPA? Okay. Homan for border czar. Okay. Huckabee for Jerusalem? Okay. Waltz for NSA? Okay (if you compare him to Sullivan, not Kissinger). Noem? Possibly okay. Stefanik to the U.N.? Absolutely (but retaining her seat is not a gimme; Hochul and Jeffries will go all in). Ratcliffe to CIA? Sure. Elon and Vivak for DOGE? Hell yes. Hegseth to Defense? Huh? What? Hold on a minute.
Pete Hegseth, by all accounts, was a good soldier and, to many tastes, is an attractive TV personality. But to give him, as his first management assignment, the responsibility for the biggest, most bloated, most byzantine, most hidebound bureaucracy in the country — a management monster with more than 2 million employees and a budget of more than $800 billion — is a risk not worth taking. Hegseth is a talent. Don’t let him get away. But make him head of Pentagon recruiting and give him stretch goals for all of the services. Tell him that the president has no interest in fielding a fighting force that is shorter, slower, weaker, fatter, or gayer. Tell him that the president has no social ambitions for the department. He wants a military that can fight and win.
And who, then, should be secretary of defense? You just got lucky, Susie Wiles. And so did your man, Rick Scott. He just lost the race for Senate majority leader, a job for which he would have been perfectly ill-suited. Rick Scott is neither a massager of egos nor a herder of cats. He’s a disruptor of arthritic organizations, an accelerator of time-urgent change, a trimmer of bureaucratic fat. With Hegseth bringing in fresh troops, and somebody like Elbridge Colby fleshing out a Trumpist strategy, Rick Scott, a proud Navy veteran, could turn that ship around.
• Thanks for what you’re doing to help the president, Susie. And please don’t forget to tell each appointee that he or she will be expected to reduce their agency headcount by 5 percent in their first budget. Or should that be 10 percent?