Donald Trump left for Florida without Susie Wiles.
Within 72 hours, the most powerful woman in Trump’s Washington had lost the position she spent four years building.
Wiles, 69, had been the last person Trump, 80, consulted before making major decisions. That arrangement ended over three days, culminating in a confrontation in front of other staff members.
Wiles left the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon as the president continued shouting at her.
Four sources familiar with the dispute told the Daily Mail that Trump turned on his chief of staff during a meeting with aides, berating her over the Republicans’ crushing midterm performance. She resigned later that night. Her successor, Stephen Miller, is due to take over on Monday.
Wiles had been quietly developing plans to leave after the midterms, as the Daily Mail first reported over the summer. Two sources said she asked to remain through February, but Trump rejected the request.
“He exploded at her,” said one source close to the president.
A White House source said Trump shouted about the election losses until Wiles left the room. Two other sources described the exchange more forcefully, saying the president ordered her out of the meeting.
“He told her to leave,” said another source familiar with the matter.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino was present, along with 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 to join Wiles elsewhere in the West Wing.
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 raised his voice at Wiles. “He would never yell at Susie,” the official said.
Two nights earlier, on election night, Trump watched from his private residence as Democrats captured both the House and Senate. He spoke little, with Wiles seated beside him. She remained at his side even as donors and senior White House officials began blaming her publicly for the result.
A fourth source said 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.
According to a White House official, Trump did not accept her resignation immediately.
He told her they would discuss it later, but had still given no answer by Friday morning. Wiles returned to the Oval Office and told him the decision had to be finalized.
Wiles had requested a transition lasting until February. Two sources said Trump did not want to wait that long, making Friday her final day.
“She’s tired,” the White House official said. “She didn’t want to keep fighting.”
A source close to Trump called that explanation a “bald-faced lie,” pointing to Wiles’s plans for the weekend.
The source said Wiles had scheduled an off-site meeting at Camp David for Saturday, when Trump was due to be in Florida. The guest list included White House officials and aides loyal to her.
Two sources told the Daily Mail that the meeting was intended to determine how Wiles could weather the crisis and remain in power. The gathering was postponed and has since been canceled.
Sources also said Wiles had been working this week to make Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the focus of blame.
Three sources told the Daily Mail that Wiles’s allies spent the days after Tuesday night’s defeat trying to present Hegseth as the public explanation for the Republicans’ poor performance. They pointed to his role in directing the Iran war, which has driven up the cost of living.
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 the Republican Party and contributed to 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.
In recent days, close advisers reportedly told Trump more than once that members of his chief of staff’s team were leaking claims about Hegseth to the press in an effort to shift attention away from Wiles, according to a source close to the president.
“I think eventually enough people talked to him that he got very upset,” the source said.
CONTINUE READING: Trump Hints on 60 Minutes at Cabinet Shakeups Beyond Susie Wiles
A series of headlines appeared immediately after the midterms detailing Trump’s alleged frustration with Hegseth, as the president sought advice from close advisers about whether to dismiss him.
A former Trump official put the accusation more bluntly: “Susie Wiles is a leaker, she’s a huge f***ing leaker.”
Her critics also focused on the cost of her political operation. A senior Trump administration official said Wiles oversaw a campaign effort that spent nearly half a billion dollars yet lost control of both chambers of Congress.
She had also predicted victory. As recently as six weeks before the election, a source told the Daily Mail, Wiles was directly telling people that Republicans would win the midterms.
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 departure was being celebrated just blocks from the White House.
A former Trump official who now works at a downtown Washington lobbying firm said the entire office was celebrating. “And I will continue celebrating through the weekend,” the official 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 assessment.
“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 role that angered her opponents. She had worked alongside Trump since 2016 and served as chief of staff for the previous two years after orchestrating his 2024 comeback, which returned him to the White House after victories in all seven battleground states.
The Daily Mail has contacted the White House, the Pentagon and representatives for Wiles for comment.
Trump announced Wiles’s successor on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday.
Stephen Miller, 41, Wiles’s deputy and the architect of the administration’s hard-line immigration crackdown, will assume the role on Monday. Trump wrote that Wiles “has done an outstanding job” and would be “moving over to the Trump Political Operation.”
Wiles later 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 was now tied to a broader purge of the White House. The source said the administration’s problems would not be resolved if Wiles’s allies remained in place.
“It’s like a weed,” the former official said. “Pull one weed and 10 more pop up in its place.”
The former official attributed Trump’s fury toward the woman he had once trusted above almost anyone else to the recent leaks and the president’s extensive time online.
“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
Wiles had argued internally for a narrower deportation policy that would prioritize people convicted of violent crimes or wanted on such charges, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
She had told colleagues that the mass deportation campaign was costing Republicans votes. On Friday, Trump handed her position 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 official rejected the suggestion that Miller took the job as anyone’s political ally. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also serves as national security adviser, while Miller serves as homeland security adviser, and the two work closely.
“I don’t know that I would say Stephen is a Marco or a JD [Vance] guy,” the official said. “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, hard-line aide Bill Pulte and Ambassador to India Sergio Gor were all considered for the chief of staff position. Gor had made clear that he was available for the job.
Trump ultimately chose Miller, his longest-serving aide, who has worked with him since the 2016 election. Miller also promised 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 election. He turned 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.