One of the most powerful people in the White House remained obscure to most Americans since the start of Trump’s second presidency, until Saturday night.
Susie Wiles, the secretive White House chief of staff and former Trump campaign manager, gave what she called her “first and probably only” sit-down television interview to President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on Fox News. As I wrote when Lara Trump’s weekly show was announced last month, the programming cements the network’s role as a mouthpiece for the Trump White House, and extends a clear pattern of nepotism from an administration claiming to champion merit-based hiring.
The roughly 17-minute segment consisted of Wiles discussing mostly anodyne topics: her long work hours, her “easy” relationship with the president, her penchant for reading and walking, and her office decor. But at the end of the sit-down, Wiles made a curious assertion: She said she hopes her “legacy” will include strengthening the country’s education system—despite the fact that Trump recently signed an executive order seeking to abolish the Department of Education.
The Trump team claims that ending the DOE is about rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools and giving power back to the states. But such a move—also attacking the authority of Congress, which established and funds the DOE—is one that experts say will harm education nationwide, particularly when it comes to under-resourced schools, poor students, and those with disabilities.
“What do you hope your legacy is?” Lara Trump asked Wiles. “What do you hope people remember about your time as White House?”
“That is such a hard question, because I don’t think that way,” Wiles replied. After taking a beat, she continued: “I want a world at peace. I want an America that’s strong. I want a border that’s secure. I want an education system—something we don’t talk about as much, but I’m passionate about—that will position our kids to meet the future, whatever that may be.”
Lara Trump: What do you hope your legacy will is?
Wiles: I want an education system, something we don’t talk about as much, but I’m passionate about that we will position our kids to meet the future, whatever that may be.. pic.twitter.com/J8rnCeQ0s1
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 30, 2025
As my colleague Sarah Szilagy reported, Education Secretary and former WWE Executive Linda McMahon has played a key role in Trump’s effort to close the $268 billion agency that administers federal funds to schools and enforces civil rights laws. The policy seems to be motivated in part by right-wing paranoia stoked by groups like Moms for Liberty:
Within hours of her confirmation on March 3, McMahon sent agency employees a memo titled “Our Department’s Final Mission.” In it, she commended Trump’s sweeping actions, including his slate of executive orders that promote school choice programs, seek to root out so-called “gender ideology” and end “radical indoctrination” of children through diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, while also banning trans girls and women from women’s sports.
After Trump signed the March 20 executive order directing McMahon to “facilitate the closure” of the agency to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, told Szilagy, “It’s just moving the country in such a wrong direction,” adding that closing the DOE will “take us back to those generations where education was deprioritized and really only a privilege for a subset of our children.”
In a statement, the National Education Association said that kneecapping the DOE “will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections.” Subsequent reductions in force to the DOE have resulted in roughly half of the agency’s employees being terminated and seven of its dozen regional offices shuttered.
Wiles’ ostensible passion for boosting education nationally does not seem to come from a history of actually working in the field. As my colleague Dan Friedman wrote last November, Wiles made her name working as a lobbyist and helping to shape Florida’s Republican party:
The daughter of late NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, Wiles is a longtime GOP operative in Florida with a history of working for rich candidates. She ran Sen. Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign for Florida’s governorship, worked as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign manager in 2012, and ran Trump’s campaign in Florida in 2016 and 2020. She also worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before a falling out with him.
Wiles has also worked as a lobbyist, and held onto a senior lobbying position with the Republican-leaning advocacy firm Mercury Public Affairs during the campaign, according to the New York Times. She was registered as a lobbyist for a tobacco company as recently as this year.
In her sit-down with Lara Trump, Wiles said she had long been “an establishment Republican…and then Donald Trump came along, MAGA came along.” But despite her appearance of being fully MAGA-pilled, Wiles seemed to draw a subtle distinction between her self and her boss when it came to their ability to accept his 2020 election loss.
“Do you remember the toughest thing you’ve ever had to tell him?” Lara Trump asked her.
“Coming to him after the 2020 election, in ’21,” Wiles replied, “and telling him that what he thought was the circumstance, wasn’t.”
Lara Trump: Do you remember the toughest thing you’ve ever had to tell him?
Wiles: The 2020 election. Coming to him after the 2020 election in 21 telling him what he thought was the circumstance wasn’t which is how I got into all this.. pic.twitter.com/1GeaADfqri
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 30, 2025
