US president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday announced that Susie Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, would be his White House chief of staff, entrusting a top position to a political operative who helped the Republican win the election.
The appointment was the first of what is expected to be a flurry of staffing announcements as Trump girds for a return to the White House on Jan. 20.
As gatekeeper to the president, the chief of staff typically wields great influence. The person manages White House staff, organizes the president’s time and schedule, and maintains contact with other government departments and lawmakers.
Photo: AP
The low-key Wiles, 67, would be the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.
“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected,” Trump said in a statement. “I have no doubt that she will make our country proud.”
Trump has been secluded at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, since defeating US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate, in Tuesday’s election.
He is considering a wide array of people for top jobs in his administration, many of them familiar figures from his 2017 to 2021 presidency, four sources said.
Wiles, a long-time Florida-based political strategist, and fellow campaign manager Chris LaCivita are credited with running a more disciplined operation for Trump’s third presidential bid compared with his past campaigns.
Trump thanked them both during his victory speech early on Wednesday.
“Susie likes to stay in the back, let me tell you,” Trump said, as she stood toward the back of the stage. “We call her the ice maiden.”
Several people who have worked with Wiles said in interviews on Thursday that she would provide stability and sage counsel to Trump in the White House.
Trump ran through four chiefs of staff — an unusually high number — during his 2017 to 2021 term as they struggled to rein in the famously undisciplined president.
“Susie is a strong woman and a true leader with a proven track record of getting things done,” Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said.
Wiles previously worked on Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign and helped Florida Governor Ron DeSantis win election in 2018. She served as a senior adviser on Trump’s 2016 and 2020 bids.
Trump chose Wiles over former House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who is close to Trump and has been a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago.
Sources said McCarthy had been in contention as well as Brooke Rollins, who was the former acting director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council.
A fierce Trump ally, New Elise Stefanik, is under consideration to be US ambassador to the UN, a source familiar with the matter said.
Former US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who was an acting intelligence chief in Trump’s first term and was with him when he recently met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in New York, is under consideration for secretary of state.
US Senator Bill Hagerty, a former US ambassador to Japan, is also under consideration for that position, the sources said.
Asked by CNN about being considered for a role in Trump’s administration, Hagerty said: “I’ll leave the speculation to the speculators.”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS