Leaked List Reveals 5 Rivals to Replace Trump Chief Susie Wiles

Three rival factions within Trump’s political orbit are maneuvering to position their preferred successor to Susie Wiles, as the president considers a possible West Wing shake-up following the midterm elections, seven insiders told the Daily Mail.

The competing camps include Wiles’ loyalists, allies of Jared Kushner and the MAGA old guard.

Wiles’ supporters are promoting deputy national security adviser Mike Needham. Allies aligned with Kushner are backing special envoy Steve Witkoff and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

The MAGA old guard is supporting deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and federal housing chief Bill Pulte. Either choice would represent a significant departure from Wiles’ tightly controlled operation.

Meanwhile, a wildcard is operating outside all three factions: John “Johnny Mac” McEntee, the MAGA “OG” who rose from campaign volunteer to Trump’s personal aide in 2015.

Selecting McEntee would revive the style of Trump’s first-term final year, when he led the personnel office and removed officials viewed as insufficiently loyal.

“John is really in a different category. It’s so much more impactful and just nothing like Stephen or Bill,” a senior administration official said.

Trump has been consulting allies about Wiles and considering potential replacements, Politico reported Thursday.

But on Friday, the president told reporters there was “zero chance” he would replace Wiles. “She’s phenomenal,” he said. “Susie is here and she’s going to be here for a long time.”

Wiles allies James Blair and Chris LaCivita are facing scrutiny after reportedly receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars each to advise the Republic of Srpska, a pro-Russia self-governing territory in the Balkans, during its elections, according to the New York Times.

The president said the following day that he would “terminate” the pair, who oversee his midterm operation, if their work created a conflict. Their super PAC said they had continued to be fully involved in the midterm effort. 

The Times also reported that Wiles’ daughter, Katie, traveled to the Bosnian Serb territory in August with a Texas energy executive who was exploring a pipeline deal. Her lobbying firm said she had not discussed the matter with any US government official.

“[Opposition research] is flooding to POTUS every hour, destroying Susie Wiles and her team, especially LaCivita and Blair,” a source in Trump’s orbit told the Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail reported in June that Wiles was quietly preparing an exit strategy for after November’s midterm elections. She rejected the suggestion at the time, insisting she was “not going anywhere.”

The Daily Mail named Rollins, Witkoff, Miller, Needham and McEntee on Tuesday as contenders on “the list,” two days before Politico published its report. A second source has since confirmed that all five are “actually fighting for the job.”

“[Trump] knows internally and has told people that he knows that he’s not going to win,” a former presidential adviser told the Daily Mail about the November 3 midterms. “Definitely going to lose the House. Potentially lose the Senate.”

Two sources said Wiles’ preferred successor is Needham, the former Heritage Action CEO who served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff in the Senate and at the State Department before becoming deputy national security adviser in May.

A Trump ally cast Needham as ‘kind of a continuation of Susie,’ but saw a snag: ‘The only problem is she doesn’t have any people. Like, no one has the stature to do it.’

‘Rollins is seen as someone you can control, and the Wiles camp loves that,’ a government source said.

Rollins said that she had ‘no plans or interest to leave’ her role for any other in the administration and added, ‘My friend Susie Wiles has been the greatest chief of staff President Trump could ask for.’

Trump is also weighing former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, ousted in 2023, whose allies argue he could help the president handle a hostile Democratic Congress, Politico reported.

McCarthy burst out laughing when the Daily Mail called him, and said he needed time to sleep on it before he could comment.

But two sources claimed Wiles is now pushing McCarthy to keep her grip on the West Wing once she is gone.

‘Everyone is telling me Susie Wiles sees the writing on the wall and thinks she can install McCarthy to maintain control of the [White House] from the outside as she’s finally relieved of duty,’ the source in Trump’s orbit told the Daily Mail.

The source claimed Wiles wants to convince Trump ‘that McCarthy can help with a hostile Congress’ and will ‘spend her remaining days pushing that on the president.’ 

‘She tries to move her pawns on the chess board to protect the queen,’ the source added.

The former adviser agreed with that sentiment, calling Wiles ‘a control freak.’

‘She is absolutely trying to control what happens next,’ the former Trump adviser said.

‘The first time I’ve heard his name in two years is today,’ he said of McCarthy. ‘Because no one in conservative space wants that.’

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He claimed Wiles ‘was a huge fan of Kevin McCarthy, still is,’ but added: ‘He’s one of them. He’s a swamp dweller.’

The Trump ally disagreed, saying McCarthy ‘would have his own agenda. He would have his own people.’

Kushner’s camp has two ‘realistic shots’ in Witkoff and Rollins because of their ties to the president’s son-in-law, the former adviser said.

‘He is seen as a frontrunner, if not the frontrunner for the job,’ a Trump confidant said of Witkoff.

But the former adviser claimed Kushner was the real power over Trump’s first-term chiefs of staff, and that Trump only caught on in 2021. ‘He was the one calling the shots,’ he said.

A spokesman for Kushner said: ‘Susie Wiles is the best Chief of Staff President Trump has ever had and Jared fully supports her. The successes the President has achieved so far in his second term show the value of everyone working together.’

The MAGA old guard has its own picks in Miller and Pulte, with McEntee lurking on its fringes, though neither of the first two looks likely to end up in the chief’s chair, the sources said.

Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, is ‘not going to take that job,’ the former adviser said of the right-wing favorite. ‘Steve is a chameleon. He survived as long as he has by not being at the top.’

Pulte is also in the mix but is not a serious candidate, sources said, with the former adviser claiming Wiles’ camp set him opposite McCarthy in Politico’s list to make McCarthy look sensible.

The Trump ally said: ‘I know [the president] wouldn’t give Pulte that job, but I do know he likes Pulte.’

Pulte, 38, a homebuilding heir, has run the Federal Housing Finance Agency since March 2025, and used the post to send criminal referrals against Trump foes including Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Wiles tried to have him fired this spring after he allegedly gave Trump the idea of posting an AI image of himself as Jesus, which sparked a row with the Vatican, the Daily Mail has reported.

She reportedly warned Pulte that feeding Trump incendiary posts would cost him his job, and tried to keep him off Air Force One, only for Trump to overrule her.

McEntee’s return to the White House would be a ‘cataclysmic event,’ the former adviser said.

The only way Trump salvages his legacy is to turn ‘anti-corruption,’ fire ‘everybody at the upper echelon of the White House’ and bring in someone like McEntee, he argued.

The MAGA faction’s wish list includes an economic populist agenda for young people, DOGE-style government reform, ending the wars in Ukraine and Iran, a crackdown on H-1B visas and removing ‘Russiagate and other deep staters,’ he said.

A Democratic House would hand Oversight Committee subpoena power to California Representative Robert Garcia.

The former adviser was ‘not even convinced’ Democrats would try to impeach Trump, predicting they would go about ‘taking down the apparatus’ around him instead.

Those who ‘need to be worried’ are Wiles, officials at her level and cabinet secretaries, he said.

Trump will need a team ‘not tarnished by year one and two of the second term’ for when ‘House Democrats send up a helicopter to start dumping subpoenas on the White House,’ he added.

The senior administration official said people very close to the president ‘keep mentioning’ McEntee.

‘This is something the new right, groyper adjacent wing of the party would want but DC may reject,’ the official added.

Wiles has iced him out of the West Wing all term, two sources said, just as chief of staff John Kelly pushed him out in 2018 over a security clearance dispute.

The 36-year-old former college football quarterback founded a dating app for conservatives after leaving the White House.

Last month he broke an 18-month Instagram hiatus with photos beside Trump and Pulte at the president’s Virginia golf course. ‘Patriots in control,’ he wrote.

‘This is more Susie haters trying to will something into reality, than it is actual reality,’ a source close to the White House told the Daily Mail.

‘What happens if Republicans over-perform and hold the Senate?’ the source asked. ‘This isn’t some far-fetched fantasy either, most of the swing-senate seats will be decided by a point or two one way or the other.’

Trump would then take credit thanks to MAGA Inc spending, the source said, and ‘to the chagrin of anti-Susie people, she will look pretty good to him.’

‘And frankly, even if the midterms are just as bad as predicted, I’m still highly skeptical it ends with her being pushed out,’ the source added.

‘This isn’t the first time people have come after her and she has shown an amazing ability for survival.’

The Daily Mail has contacted the White House and McEntee for comment.