Stephen Miller replaces Susie Wiles as Trump’s White House chief of staff after GOP’s midterm defeat

FILE – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, left, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listen during a meeting with President Donald Trump and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of the G7 Summit, June 16, 2025, in Kananaskis, Canada. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump has announced that Stephen Miller will replace Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff.

Miller, a longtime member of Trump’s inner circle of advisers, has been a key architect of the administration’s immigration policies. He joined Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as a speechwriter. He most recently has served as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and oversees a broad portfolio.

The Republican Party was handed monumental defeats in Tuesday’s midterm elections. This change appears to show that the Trump administration is resisting a conciliatory approach to Democratic lawmakers who are eager to investigate the administration, including Miller himself.

Miller, who is 41, is a dogged defender of Trump and has built a deep and sophisticated understanding of a president’s executive power and how the federal government operates.

Wiles gave Trump her resignation Thursday night, a person familiar with the events told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation. Trump praised Wiles and said she’d continue to work for his political organization.

Trump has denied that he made the change because he was unhappy with his team after the deep losses his party suffered.

“Not because of the election. It’s just time,” Trump said. “Sometimes you change. The election wasn’t my election. I wasn’t on the ballot.”

Wiles, the steely political operator and longtime adviser to Trump, was the first woman to ever serve in that post and the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Trump, who cycled through four of them during his first four-year term.

“Serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime. I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” Wiles said in a social media post shortly after Trump’s announcement.

The departure also came months after Wiles indicated she no longer showed evidence of breast cancer after she underwent months of treatment for the disease, a diagnosis she went public with in March 2026.

Wiles, 69, was the second woman to lead Trump’s presidential campaign to victory, although she never embraced the formal title of campaign manager.

She has been credited with steering the most disciplined of his three presidential bids, and Trump himself has said he was often told that Wiles led his “best-run campaign.” Often called the “ice maiden” by the president, she was seen as the no-brainer choice to serve as White House chief of staff at the start of his second term.

Wiles stuck with the job even after her breast cancer diagnosis. Deep into the midterm campaign, six months after having revealed her diagnosis, she said she was “cancer-free,” indicating she no longer showed evidence of cancer after her pathology results came back clear.

Wiles, the daughter of the late NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall, cut her reputation as someone who brought discipline to the president’s chaotic style and shunned the spotlight, so much so that at Trump’s 2024 election night victory party, she repeatedly shook her head and avoided the microphone as Trump tried to coax her to speak to the crowd.

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