AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Susie Wiles is doing something no woman has done before. She is the first in history to hold the position of White House chief of staff. And now we will find out if she can do something that no one - no man, nor woman - has ever done before, and that is impose discipline and order on a Trump White House that was rife with leaks, drama and, by many accounts, chaos during his first term. For a look at Susie Wiles' chances I'm joined now by journalist Chris Whipple. He's the author of several books, including "The Gatekeepers: How The White House Chiefs Of Staff Define Every Presidency." Welcome.
CHRIS WHIPPLE: Great to be with you.
CHANG: Great to have you. So I understand that at one point you had interviewed every living White House chief of staff. Is that still true?
WHIPPLE: Yeah. No, it is true. I interviewed all 17 living White House chiefs of staff...
CHANG: Wow.
WHIPPLE: ...For my book "The Gatekeepers." This was just before Trump came into office, and afterwards I interviewed Reince Priebus as well. So I can't say that I've interviewed every living chief to date, but I have interviewed the latest one, which is Susie Wiles.
CHANG: Yeah. Let's talk about Susie Wiles specifically and what you're noticing so far. I mean, before she even became President Trump's chief of staff, she was the cochair of his presidential campaign. And I know that you followed Trump's campaign closely. You have a forthcoming book about it. What did you learn about Susie Wiles from her time in that role?
WHIPPLE: Well, she's an absolutely fascinating character. You know, she cut her teeth as a 23-year-old scheduler for Ronald Reagan, later worked in his Labor Department. But she really spent most of her political career, or really all of her political career, in Florida. She was indispensable to Donald Trump's success in Florida, and he made her his 2024 cochair. And she has this uncanny ability to impose some discipline on Trump's disorder, and that's going to be, of course, the ultimate test for her in the Trump White House.
CHANG: Well, now that she is White House chief of staff, you know, what we've seen just during the first week of Trump 2.0 is something vastly different - right? - from the first week of his first term. Like, the administration unveiled and implemented a blizzard of executive actions with tremendous speed and efficiency. Do you attribute that to Susie Wiles in particular or to a whole host of advisers?
WHIPPLE: I think it's too early to say to what extent this is Susie Wiles and how much of it is Trump. And, you know, I would question the efficiency, as you put it. I mean, I think the so-called shock and awe has been certainly distracting, maybe effective in some cases, but it's no formula for long-term success in the Oval Office. You know, I'll never forget Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's third chief of staff, once told me that President Clinton used to have a thousand great ideas every day.
CHANG: (Laughter).
WHIPPLE: And I'd have to turn him around, walk him back into the Oval Office and say, Mr. President, you and I agreed that we were going to do five or six things.
CHANG: (Laughter).
WHIPPLE: And if you stick to that, I can set up the focus and the structure to get that done, but you can't do a thousand things.
CHANG: Yeah.
WHIPPLE: That's something that Trump is going to find out - or not. He really didn't learn much about governing in his first four years.
CHANG: So what do you think Susie Wiles could do differently from her predecessors to make the relationship different than that relationship between previous chiefs of staff and President Trump?
WHIPPLE: So I think Susie Wiles brings a couple of advantages that her predecessors never had. I mean, I mentioned this uncanny ability she has to work with Trump. She seems to choose her fights carefully - maybe too carefully. I mean, most White House chiefs would have thrown their body in front of that decision to pardon 1,500 insurrectionists. The other thing is that I think temperament is an underrated part of being White House chief of staff, and Susie Wiles has it. She has charm in abundance, and she's going to need every bit of it to be successful.
CHANG: Well, I want to talk about a potential third person in this relationship - Elon Musk. Because even before Trump was sworn in, we saw Elon Musk wading into a legislative fight over a government funding bill ahead of Trump. How do you see Wiles managing the Musk-Trump dynamic?
WHIPPLE: Very carefully, I would say. And we've already seen, to some extent, Susie Wiles giving a sharp elbow to Musk. I think that she - she's already made it clear that he's not going to have an office in the West Wing.
CHANG: Right.
WHIPPLE: So Round 1 to Susie Wiles, really.
CHANG: (Laughter).
WHIPPLE: But it's going to be a fascinating dynamic to watch because I'm told that early on during the transition it was really Trump and Musk and maybe Don Jr. - they were essentially spitballing cabinet nominees. And they were the ones who came up with Matt Gaetz, and Susie wasn't in the room. Well, to be an effective White House chief, she's going to have to be in the room for those decisions. In fact, an empowered White House chief really should be the last person in the room.
CHANG: Chris Whipple - he is the author of "The Gatekeepers," and also of the forthcoming "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, And The Odds In The Wildest Campaign In History." Thank you so much for joining us today.
WHIPPLE: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
