Susie Wiles with Donald Trump at an election night party on November 6, 2024. Alex BrandonAP

Donald Trump announced On Thursday, Susie Wiles, who is credited as his de facto campaign manager with imposing a degree of discipline that helped him win on Tuesday, will serve as his chief of staff.

Wiles has built a reputation as a smart, pragmatic and effective campaigner. For critics of Trump’s agenda — which includes deporting millions of immigrants, imposing tariffs likely to increase inflation, firing large numbers of government officials and using the Justice Department to prosecute critics — her appointment is bad news .

“Susie is tough, smart, innovative and universally admired and respected,” Trump said in a statement Thursday. ‘Susie will continue to work tirelessly to make America great again’

Wiles will not be John Kelly, who has not only labeled Trump a fascist but also said that as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, he tried to prevent Trump from indulging his worst instincts.

Wiles isn’t going to the White House to stop Trump from carrying out his plans — she will be there to help him impose them more effectively. Wiles may be a reason that Trump, a bumbling, authoritarian wannabe in his first term, will be more effective in his second term.

Nor is Wiles likely to go too far in stopping Trump from pursuing some of his worst impulses.

As Tim Alberta recently reported in the Atlantic OceanWiles was occasionally willing to push back on Trump’s bad ideas, but not too often. Here, Alberta describes how Wiles handled Trump’s insistence on allowing far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to travel with Trump in September, a decision that drew embarrassing headlines when Loomer, who claimed the September 11 attack was an “inside job,” signed on at Trump at a 9/11 memorial event.

“Wiles knew nothing good could come of this. Still, after another round of gentle countering, she agreed. (Even people like Wiles, who have a reputation for talking Trump out of certain reckless ideas, are learning that you can’t stay at the table if you tell the man “no” one too many times.) Wiles decided that Loomer allowed the trip was not a hill to die on. Maybe, she would later tell friends, it should have been that way.’

Wiles, the daughter of late NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, is a longtime GOP operative in Florida with a history of working for wealthy candidates. She managed Senator Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for governor of Florida, worked as presidential campaign manager for former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman in 2012, and managed Trump’s campaign in Florida in 2016 and 2020. She also worked for the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis before she got into a fight. with him.

Wiles has also worked as a lobbyist and held a senior lobbying position at the Republican advocacy group Mercury Public Affairs during the campaign, the newspaper said. New York Times. This year she was registered as a lobbyist for a tobacco manufacturer.

Wiles also worked from 2017 through 2019 as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, formerly a Florida-based firm that built a thriving D.C. practice after Trump’s election in 2016, based in part on perceived access to him.

While Wiles worked there, the company signed up a colorful list of clients, including a Russian billionaire, a company run by a man linked to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and a solar energy company controlled by a Chinese state-owned company. Wiles was not a registered lobbyist for any of those clients. But she registered to represent a host of outfits, including General Motors and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Wiles also lobbied on behalf of Globovisión, a Venezuelan company looking to expand into U.S. markets. That plan collapsed in 2018, when the Justice Department charged its founder, Raul Gorrin, with corruption. Ballard said it cut ties with the company after learning of the federal investigation. Last month, the Justice Department re-indicted Gorrin, alleging that he helped “launder funds corruptly obtained from Venezuela’s state-owned and state-controlled energy company… in exchange for hundreds of millions in bribes to Venezuelan officials.”

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wiles’ lobbying work.