Longtime GOP strategist Susie Wiles presided over President-elect Donald Trump's campaign as he managed to win a second term. For this, he has granted her the position of White House chief of staff for his next administration. But this could turn out to be a "cursed prize," wrote Hayes Brown for MSNBC.
"It seems highly unlikely, based on precedent, that the same will be said about her time in the White House," wrote Brown. "Which isn’t to say that Wiles’ endurance so far isn’t impressive or that she’s incapable of handling the massive responsibilities that come with overseeing the White House’s operations ... Nor does Wiles seem to have any discernible hesitation about Trump’s revenge-driven agenda," especially since she got her own revenge after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis threw her out of his own team and she went on to run Trump's campaign that knocked him out of the primary.
The bigger issue, wrote Brown, is that Trump's chiefs of staff quickly become punching bags for everything that fails and don't last long.
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"We do have to remember that Trump blew through three (and a half) chiefs of staff during his four years in office," he wrote. "The first, former Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, lasted only six months in the job. He was utterly unable to handle the chaos that Trump actively encouraged in his first months in office as multiple nexuses of power struggled for control." Then, John Kelly took over from him, but eventually left over his failure to rein in Trump's personal demons. Then Mick Mulvaney served briefly, and finally Mark Meadows, who ended up criminally charged in the Georgia election scheme.
There's little reason to think, however revered Wiles is in GOP strategist circles, that she can be any better at tamping down the chaos, wrote Brown.
At the end of the day, he wrote, "we’ll see what happens if Wiles chooses the wrong place to draw the line. If she says 'no' that one time too many, the odds are that she gets tossed for someone who can’t (or won’t) say no to the president’s worst instincts."