All posts tagged "susie wiles"

Ex-GOP operative unveils vivid vision to dump Trump's Qatari jet into the Atlantic Ocean

An ex-GOP strategist has a wild and vivid plan for one of the most controversial foreign gifts that Trump has accepted.

Steve Schmidt said on his podcast on Wednesday that he has "fantasies" about calling White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on the eve of Trump's departure from the Oval Office in 2029. He imagined explaining to her what the U.S. military is going to do with the $400 million luxury jet Trump accepted from Qatar.

"Wherever you're taking the jet, it's best you be on the ground by noon at the moment of transition," Schmidt imagines telling Wiles. "Because if you're in the air, that jet is returning to Joint Base Andrews," outside of Washington, D.C.

"It lands, you can walk off the tarmac to the gate and try to find an Uber," Schmidt said, continuing his fantasy. "That Jet is going to be taken, must be taken, seized by the U.S. military, and no f— around with it."

He said he'd like to see the U.S. military "environmentally remediate" the Qatari jet, then "put on a barge and by sometime the next day on the 21st [of January, 2029], there needs to be video of it being dumped into the Atlantic Ocean off of Mar-a-Lago."

At the bottom of the ocean, the jet can find new life as "an artificial reef" and a "national marine park," Schmidt suggested. He then encouraged Trump to use the sunken jet to "moor a low-income floating dive center there for all the Black kids in West Palm Beach to come and learn water sports."

Schmidt said that when the press asks what happened to the plane, the new administration can tell them, "It's in the ocean, and it's never coming back."

Susie Wiles cracks down as leaky staff airs White House dirty laundry to the press

A top White House official has become so frustrated with seeing details of the Trump administration leaked to the press that she's begun cracking down internally, according to a new report.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles sent an email across the Executive Office of the President telling staff to stop leaking information to the press, Politico reported on Friday.

According to Politico, the email stated that "no staff member within the Executive Office of the President is permitted to speak with members of the news media without the explicit approval of the White House Communications Office," adding that "unauthorized leaks" can get them fired.

"She was generally very frustrated with leaks," a source told Politico. The White House has been "increasingly frustrated" with staff going around "formal channels and carrying disputes or decision-making battles into the press," a source relayed to Politico.

The crackdown on leaks comes a month after Wiles privately told Cabinet members to avoid international travel and focus on Trump's agenda at home, Politico noted.

Politico also brought up comments Wiles made on Thursday, where she said if she does get into trouble in the White House, "I have a couple of friends in the reporter ranks."

Embarrassed Trump to fire gaffe-prone Cabinet member within days: White House insider

Donald Trump is preparing to fire a chief member of his Cabinet after a series of gaffes left the president embarrassed, a White House insider has claimed.

Trump recently dismissed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi in quick succession, marking a dramatic purge of Cabinet members.

FBI Director Kash Patel will be the next admin figure to be fired, according to the insider.

Susan Crabtree, a political correspondent for Real Clear Politics, shared a comment from the White House source on the possible removal of Patel, despite pressure also building for White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles following questions regarding security coming after Saturday's shooting attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

The anonymous official has claimed that Patel's firing could come within days.

Crabtree wrote, "A source familiar with the presidential security protocols said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles oversees the Secret Service and has let [Secret Service Director Sean Curran] remain in his job despite numerous failures on his watch. 'They’re about to fire Kash and he had nothing to do with this, while Susie oversees the Secret Service, and it’s failure after failure, and she gets no blame,' the source said."

Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic and staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick on April 20, 2026, following a bombshell investigative report detailing his alleged excessive drinking and erratic behavior.

The Atlantic's reporting cited multiple current and former FBI officials describing Patel's unexplained absences, panic episodes when locked out of the FBI computer system, and concerning behavior patterns that raised serious questions about his fitness for office.

'Hit the big red panic button': Trump's top aide summons GOP insiders for urgent talks

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has called together dozens of Republican strategists from across the United States for an "urgent closed-door summit" as the GOP looks ahead at potentially brutal midterms, according to reports on Monday.

The GOP operatives were reportedly aiming to prepare for the expected challenge this fall that could be a serious struggle for Republicans to maintain majority in Congress, according to The Daily Beast.

"One of Donald Trump’s closest aides just hit the big red panic button as the president’s standing with the American people plummets before this year’s midterm elections," The Beast reported.

These strategists were expected to provide insights and additional support to Republican candidates in the months ahead.

Wiles, who was Trump's former campaign manager, has reportedly tasked James Blair, her former deputy in the Trump administration, to prioritize midterm strategies for GOP candidates. The move followed a strategy session in February after the cabinet and other MAGA operatives reviewed potential strategies.

As Trump's approval rating has taken a dive and is hitting around 37 percent, there has been “growing urgency inside the White House about the midterms,” according to Politico.

Top aide's cancer diagnosis may have unleashed Trump's firing spree: analyst

Donald Trump has fired two high-profile Cabinet members over the last month, and it could be because a crucial aide is absent, a political analyst has claimed.

Both the Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi were shown the door in quick succession, with the latter fired by Trump earlier this week. Trump has turned over fewer staff members in his second term as president, but an increase in high-profile firings may be because the aide keeping him in check is less present than usual.

Slate columnist Jill Filipovic suggested Susie Wiles' absence may have given Trump free rein to clean house, as he does not have any opposition to firing members of his administration.

Filipovic wrote, "The second Trump administration has seen far less churn than the first. That’s in part because, this time around, Trump appointed a slate of hardcore loyalists. Those include Noem and Bondi, who bent over backward to serve the president, even when it meant bending the law, too.

"And the lack of churn has also been credited to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who by most accounts has enforced significant restraint from a famously chaotic leader. Wiles, though, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and while she has remained in her role, her influence may not be quite as forceful as it once was."

Filipovic went on to note several other high-profile staff members had been ousted from their positions in recent weeks, with Border Patrol head Greg Bovino dismissed in late January.

"Even after all of that, he was simply moved back to his previous role in California and allowed to quietly retire," Filipovic noted. "National Security adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added the editor in chief of the Atlantic to a private Signal chat about bombing Yemen; he was removed from his national security post, but made ambassador to the United Nations.

"Other men who have made colossal errors have retained their posts. Pete Hegseth is the one who decided to send war plans and other sensitive classified information to his colleagues, his wife, and his brother on Signal in the first place, and he remains in charge of the Department of Defense (and continues to insist on calling it, ridiculously, the Department of War).

"Stephen Miller is one of the administration’s most odious members and a near-constant source of public embarrassment; he was also, by most accounts, the one actually pulling the strings at Noem’s Department of Homeland Security and setting the administration’s immigration policies, including spreading the lie that Alex Pretti, the U.S. citizen who was gunned down in the street by ICE agents, was an 'assassin' planning a 'massacre.'

"And if Miller is the administration’s most odious, FBI Director Kash Patel is its most buffoonish."

Trump's midterm 'panic' threatens to spell the end for Stephen Miller: analyst

Donald Trump could make a major administration change ahead of the midterms to ease voter woes, an analyst has claimed.

Stephen Miller's hard line on immigration policy is considered unsettling for voters, according to an internal document seen by The Wall Street Journal and noted by analyst Greg Sargent. The New Republic columnist suggested the president may have been swayed by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to soften the admin's stance.

Sargent believes Trump is set to throw Miller "under the bus" as a result.

Sargent wrote, "Trump wants to 'lower the profile of his mass deportation effort,' the Journal reveals. He wants voters to think the targets of these deportations are 'bad guys,' not noncriminal undocumented residents.

"He wants less visibility for ICE raids in cities, fewer public confrontations with local officials, and less public talk about “mass deportations,” which, he now grasps, are hideously unpopular.

"Tellingly, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles now sees deportations as a liability for the midterms, per the report," Sargent wrote. "That Trump is siding with her on the politics here is a sign of political panic and a rebuke to Miller, who apparently delights in flaunting the administration’s vicious sadism and overt white nationalism — and seems certain that latent majorities are quietly cheering along.

"To be clear, this report deserves serious skepticism. It very much bears watching whether ICE will actually end up deprioritizing the removal of noncriminal immigrants. Trump mostly wants the appearance of a pivot: According to the Journal, he wants a focus on 'criminals' in GOP 'messaging.'"

Whether Trump removes Miller from his position is yet to be seen, but Sargent suggests that, until the president does so, it will be hard to soften immigration policy.

He wrote: "Trump can dress this up with spin about targeting 'criminals' all he likes. But until all the ethnonationalist, civilizational-emergency-mongering nonsense is exorcised, the deeper problem will fester.

"Trump believes all those ideas himself, but the depth of his commitment to them has never been all that clear. One doubts he’ll be so inclined, but should he ever want to end this madness, only one move on his part—a big personnel move—can truly put an end to it."

Susie Wiles now caught in crosshairs as Rubio forced to testify against longtime pal

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's longtime confidant and colleague has come under fire for his alleged lobbying ties to Venezuela, and the ordeal has now captured both President Donald Trump's closest allies, Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, in the legal crosshairs.

David Rivera, who has been a friend to Rubio for 20 years, was slated to stand trial in Miami federal court over allegations that he acted as a federal agent for Venezuela and now Rubio, who serves as secretary of state, is scheduled to testify against him as a government witness, according to a report Tuesday from The Lever.

Rivera, a fellow Cuban American immigrant from Miami, was with Rubio when he picked out his wife's engagement ring. He stood by his side as he pushed his political career forward while they both pursued their political ambitions in the Florida House of Representatives.

The case has raised questions about Trump's inner circle and who yields power.

"The blockbuster case hasn’t just ensnared Rubio, a central architect of President Donald Trump’s recent overthrow of the Venezuelan government," The Lever reported. "It provides a rare glimpse into a constellation of powerful figures in Trump’s orbit — including his White House chief of staff — who have profited from shaping U.S. policy on Venezuela, potentially without always disclosing the true nature of their work."

Wiles, who formerly co-led powerful U.S. lobbying group Ballard Partners, has also been mentioned in the case. Rivera's attorneys have suggested that in their client's defense, they "appear ready to suggest that the foreign-agent violations leveled against their client could just as easily be applied to another political operative: Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff. To make their case, Rivera’s lawyers are zeroing in on two businessmen named in the indictment: a wealthy Venezuelan media mogul named Raúl Gorrín and a convicted cocaine trafficker named Hugo Perera."

"The hundreds of pages of Ballard records described by Rivera’s attorneys could shed light on the matter, but the documents may never become public," according to The Lever. "Last month, a federal magistrate judge in Florida’s Southern District Court granted a Justice Department petition allowing Wiles to avoid testifying at Rivera’s trial, thereby permitting related documents to remain under seal."

"But in his ruling, the judge made a surprising admission," according to the outlet.

"To be clear, no one disputes that Ballard Partners registered under FARA and dealt with Gorrín openly,” wrote Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres," The Lever reported. "Torres’ office refused to comment. But if Torres is correct, it would mean that — despite no publicly available record of the filing — Trump’s chief of staff previously worked as a registered foreign agent for a government the U.S. recently moved to overthrow."

Cabinet member's 'blazing red flag' blunder 'wildly worse' than Signalgate: expert

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is at the storm of what a former GOP strategist has called a worse moment for Donald Trump's administration than the Yemen leak.

Highly sensitive military information had been leaked inadvertently in March 2025 when a group chat including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance also featured The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. It marked an embarrassing moment for the administration, but there are fears of even bigger new leak problems involving Gabbard, according to political analyst Rick Wilson.

The National Security Agency flagged a phone call between two foreign intelligence members, with highly sensitive communication — reportedly involving somebody close to Trump — brought to Gabbard's attention.

The director, rather than allowing the NSA's investigation to continue, took a paper copy to Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff, according to The Guardian.

This move could be damaging to the administration, according to Wilson, who appeared on political commentator Molly Jong-Fast's podcast to discuss the problem Gabbard has caused.

Wilson said, "She is in some deep, deep, deep, deep s--t. The intelligence community people who are still around give a damn about their job. They give a damn about the country and the security and she has put us in danger.

"This is at a level that is so above and beyond because of both the nature of the target, whoever this foreign intelligence person was, and the collection system from the NSA that got the information. This is something incredibly sensitive, crown-jewel-level stuff.

"This is a blazing red flag about Gabbard's inability and lack of temperament to do this job."

Fast Politics host Jong-Fast then asked if this situation is "worse or better" than the Yemen strike leak from Hegseth last year.

"This is wildly worse," Wilson replied. "That foreign intelligence person almost certainly will become aware that they are targeting them in a certain way, they will communicate differently.

"The other part of this is what it implicates in the Trump administration. We have seen in what we know of the complaint so far is that the person they were talking to is 'close to Trump,' this does not mean it is a government official.

"Given Donald Trump's propensity for using outside actors, Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, who are not government officials, to conduct diplomacy and foreign policy, I'm deeply concerned that somebody inside the Trump government... gets on the phone and calls another person and says 'did you hear about this thing that we're doing?'"

Trump reveals wild reason for closing his eyes during meetings

President Donald Trump on Thursday revealed why he closes his eyes during long cabinet meetings — he was bored.

Trump maintained that he wasn't sleeping, but instead, he was just closing his eyes during the cabinet meeting and press conference at the White House, The Daily Beast reported.

“The last time we had a press conference, it lasted for three hours, and some people said he closed his eyes. Look, it got pretty boring,” Trump said.

People in the room started laughing, including his cabinet.

"I love these people but there's a lot of people," he said. "It was a little bit on the boring side. I didn't sleep I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of here... I don't sleep much, let me tell you."

He also joked that photographers "got me in a blink."

Trump is known for not sleeping much and even using that time to post excessively on his Truth Social platform.

The Trump administration has taken measures to address fallout over public concerns after Trump appeared to doze off during televised events in the Oval Office.

Insiders have reported that Trump is "showing signs of aging in public and private," with sleep deprivation emerging as a concern within his inner circle.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has reportedly tried to address the situation and has aimed to minimize extended periods that require Trump's attention.

"Wiles and others have urged cabinet members to shorten their presentations, according to administration officials," according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.

President Trump on his last Cabinet Meeting: "It lasted for three hours. Some people said, 'he closed his eyes.' Look, it got pretty boring." pic.twitter.com/0CxGy61NBm
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 29, 2026

Wiles and Miller ‘fully turned’ against two other top Trump officials as admin 'splinters'

The Trump administration was reportedly splintering Monday over the fatal ICE shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

President Donald Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles and White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller — the architect of the Trump administration's aggressive immigration policy — have apparently turned on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, The Daily Beast reported. Lewandowski and Noem have been subject to multiple reports of a not-so-secret personal relationship, although neither of them have publicly addressed the claims.

The administration's senior leadership has questioned Noem's competence and decision to have Customs and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino leading the operation as the "public face" for Trump's policies. Several of Bovino's moves had already come into question prior to Pretti's killing shocked Americans.

"According to two senior officials, Miller is furious that Bovino, 55, and his hardcore 'turn and burn' tactics were chosen to become the focal point of the nationwide blitz," according to The Beast.

Miller has blamed Noem and Lewandowski for the decision.

“Bovino is Corey’s guy,” a source told The Beast, explaining that was why Bovino tried to support Noem's unfounded claims that Pretti was to blame for his own death.

Another insider said it was a mistake to follow Lewandowski's suggestion to make Bovino and Border Patrol leaders of the Trump administration's immigration mission, calling it "a miscalculation on Lewandowski’s part that led to declining support."

"The result has seen a splintering among the Trump administration’s senior leadership." according to The Beast. "While Wiles, 68, simply 'doesn’t like' Noem, Miller now views Noem, Lewandowski, and Bovino as a 'liability,' the official said."