Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said he expects current chief of staff Susie Wiles to leave her post after the midterm elections, but her departure would be on her own terms after reports suggested she may have lost President Trump’s confidence.
“If she leaves, and I think she probably will, it’s not necessarily because she’s fallen out of favor with Trump,” Mulvaney said in an interview with NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”
“It’s just a natural sort of time to make that change,” he added.
Mulvaney, who served as Trump’s acting chief of staff during his first term, said Wiles remains an influential figure in the administration despite speculation about her future at the White House.
Speculation over Wiles’s relationship with the president came amid the controversial hiring and quick firing of former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. Reports suggest Wiles had distanced herself from the decision to bring Zacharia into the administration, which Trump chose to do anyway.
“I think she probably leaked it out that she was not involved in the hiring of Katie Zacharia,” Mulvaney said, describing it as one of the few leaks to emerge from the chief of staff’s office.
Politico reported that Wiles helped set up Zacharia’s Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, where the longtime friend of Trump grilled her about her legal credentials and shaky first press briefing.
Trump reportedly fired Zacharia after watching her interviews with Hannity and on the MAGA-friendly morning show “Fox & Friends,” which a senior White House official described to Politico as “the nail in her coffin” alongside her “her weird answer on being a lawyer.”
Mulvaney noted the subsequent reports of Wiles’s possible involvement in putting Zacharia out of a job, which he viewed as further evidence that she continues to wield considerable influence.
Trump also publicly defended Wiles, dismissing any speculation that her job was in jeopardy.
“TOTAL FAKE NEWS Politico doesn’t care about facts, integrity, or honest journalism — it’s why I kicked them out of the White House!” Trump said in a statement to the outlet. “Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff — there is a reason for that. She has been with me since the beginning, is my trusted advisor, and has my COMPLETE confidence.”
The Washington Post reported Friday that a power struggle has erupted in the White House amid speculation that Wiles may step down from her powerful position.
Several senior administration officials have reportedly begun positioning themselves as potential successors, including deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
