In the space of 72 hours, Susie Wiles lost the position she had spent a decade building toward: the most influential woman in Donald Trump’s Washington.
Wiles, 69, had been the final person Trump, 80, consulted before making major decisions. That role ended over three days, culminating in a confrontation witnessed by members of his staff.
On Thursday afternoon, Wiles left the Oval Office while the President was still shouting at her.
Trump turned on his chief of staff during a meeting with other aides, blaming her for the Republicans’ disastrous midterm results, according to four sources familiar with the dispute who spoke to Our News Outlet. By that evening, she had resigned. Her successor, Stephen Miller, was expected to take over on Monday.
Wiles, who had been quietly preparing an exit after the midterms, as Our News Outlet first reported over the summer, asked to remain in the job until February, according to two sources. Trump rejected the request.
‘He exploded at her,’ said one source close to Trump.
A White House source said Trump berated Wiles over the election losses until she left the room. Two other sources described the encounter more starkly, saying Trump ordered her out of the meeting.
‘He told her to leave,’ another source said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino was present, as was Morgan Dewitt-Snow, a close Wiles ally who oversees the White House personnel office.
Dewitt-Snow appeared visibly shaken afterward, according to a source. Rather than return to her desk, she went elsewhere in the West Wing to stay with Wiles.
Donald Trump screamed at Susie Wiles over the midterm defeat on Thursday (pictured: Trump in the Oval Office on October 20)
Wiles left the office as Trump was still yelling at her (pictured: Wiles in the Oval Office)
Stephen Miller left with a broad grin on Friday as he headed to Florida with Trump aide Natalie Harp
A White House official denied that Trump had raised his voice at Wiles, saying: ‘He would never yell at Susie.’
Two nights earlier, on election night, Trump watched from his private residence as Democrats captured both the House and Senate. He said little, with Wiles seated beside him, even as donors and senior White House officials began blaming her by name.
According to one source, Wiles had been warned that she was about to be dismissed. She went to see Trump on Thursday night and resigned before he could fire her.
A White House official said Trump did not immediately accept her resignation.
He told Wiles they would discuss the matter later, but by Friday morning he still had not given her an answer. She returned to the Oval Office and told him the decision had to be finalized.
Wiles had asked to oversee a transition through February. Trump did not want to wait that long, two sources said, and Friday became her final day.
‘She’s tired,’ the White House official said. ‘She didn’t want to keep fighting.’
A source close to the President dismissed that explanation as a blatant lie, pointing to plans Wiles had made for the weekend.
Wiles had scheduled an off-site gathering at Camp David for Saturday, when Trump was due to be in Florida, the source said. The guest list included White House officials and aides loyal to her.
Two sources told Our News Outlet that the meeting was intended to determine how Wiles could weather the coming week and retain her position. The event was postponed and has since been canceled.
Sources also said Wiles had been pursuing another effort: making Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the scapegoat for the Republican defeat.
In the days after Tuesday night’s drubbing, Wiles’s allies sought to present Hegseth as the public explanation for the party’s poor performance. They blamed his role in directing the Iran war, which has driven up the cost of living, according to three sources who spoke to Our News Outlet.
Morgan DeWitt-Snow is the de facto head of the Presidential Personnel Office
Trump aide Natalie Harp, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and new White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller leaving for Florida on Friday
Trump acknowledged that the war had hurt Republicans and helped produce what he called a ‘bluenami.’ He said voters ‘weren’t willing to deal with the short term consequence of paying more for gasoline.’
‘Susie was trying to push out Pete’ to redirect blame for the midterm disaster, a senior Pentagon official said.
But in recent days, close advisers reportedly told Trump more than once that members of Wiles’s team were leaking information about Hegseth to the press in an effort to shift attention away from her, according to a source close to the President.
‘I think eventually enough people talked to him that he got very upset,’ the source said.
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A wave of headlines appeared immediately after the midterms detailing Trump’s alleged anger at Hegseth, as the President sought advice from trusted advisers about whether to remove him.
A former Trump official offered an even harsher assessment: ‘Susie Wiles is a leaker, she’s a huge f***ing leaker,’ he said.
Her critics also focused on the cost of Wiles’s political operation. It spent nearly half a billion dollars yet lost control of both chambers of Congress, according to a senior Trump administration official.
Wiles had also repeatedly predicted victory. As recently as six weeks before the election, she was telling people directly that Republicans would win the midterms, a source told Our News Outlet.
Outgoing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino wait as Marine One lands on the south lawn of the White House
Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller at the Pentagon
By Friday afternoon, news of Wiles’s ouster was being celebrated just blocks from the White House.
A former Trump official now working for a downtown Washington lobbying firm said the entire office was celebrating. ‘And I will continue celebrating through the weekend,’ the person said.
‘I think we were all kind of done with the craziness, and the self-serve, the self-dealing and the corruption, which we all saw.’
Wiles’s supporters offered a sharply different account.
‘A lot of people love her, a lot of people hate her,’ a senior Trump administration official said. ‘The people that hate her are many of the individuals that want to just do crazy s*** and get away with it.’
The official said Wiles controlled what information reached the President, a level of filtering that angered her opponents. She had worked alongside Trump since 2016 and served as chief of staff for the past two years after orchestrating his 2024 comeback, which saw him win all seven battleground states and return to the White House.
The Daily Mail has contacted the White House, the Pentagon and representatives for Wiles for comment.
Trump announced Wiles’s replacement on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday.
Stephen Miller, 41, Wiles’s deputy and the architect of the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, will take over. Trump wrote that Wiles ‘has done an outstanding job’ and would be ‘moving over to the Trump Political Operation.’
Shortly afterward, Wiles confirmed that Friday had been her final day. ‘Serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime,’ she wrote.
A former Trump official said support for Miller’s appointment depended on whether it was followed by a broader purge of the White House. The source said the administration’s problems would not be resolved if Wiles’s allies remained in the building.
‘It’s like a weed,’ he said. ‘Pull one weed and ten more pop up in its place.’
The former official said recent leaks, combined with Trump’s constant exposure to online commentary, may have helped trigger the President’s fury toward the woman he once trusted above almost everyone else.
‘He’s perpetually online,’ the source said. ‘So my guess is he saw some things that needed to change.’
JD Vance and Marco Rubio with Trump in the Oval Office
A source familiar with internal deliberations said Wiles had argued for a narrower deportation policy, focused on removing people convicted of violent crimes or wanted in connection with such offenses.
She had told colleagues that the mass deportation campaign was costing Republicans votes. On Friday, Trump gave her job to the man who designed that operation.
‘I don’t know that there is anyone to the right of Stephen Miller on immigration,’ a State Department official said. ‘The guys who deport people are going to be excited.’
The same official rejected the suggestion that Miller would arrive beholden to any particular faction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also serves as national security adviser, while Miller is homeland security adviser, and the two work closely together.
Still, the official said: ‘I don’t know that I would say Stephen is a Marco or a JD [Vance] guy. I think he’s kind of his own man… I don’t know that he has a declared alliance. I think he’s focused on serving the President.’
New Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, staunch Trump ally and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and hardliner Bill Pulte, one of Trump’s closest aides, were considered for the post. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor also made clear that he was available.
Trump ultimately chose Miller, his longest-serving aide, who has worked with him since the 2016 election. One reason was Miller’s pledge to help bring the Iran war to an end.
‘I think Susie’s done a very good job, great job,’ the President told reporters at the White House on Friday.
On the South Lawn, a reporter asked Trump how it felt to lose the midterms. He turned away and walked toward the helicopter waiting to take him to Florida.
Rubio, close aide Natalie Harp and Miller boarded the aircraft with him. Wiles was nowhere to be seen.
