Florida's Susie Wiles moves to the Trump political operation. The deputy who built the deportation machine takes over the West Wing on Monday.
By FMNN Staff | TAMPA (Nov. 6, 2026)
The short version
President Trump announced Friday on Truth Social that Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, becomes White House chief of staff on Monday, Nov. 9.
Susie Wiles, the Jacksonville-area Florida operative who ran his 2024 campaign, is out of the West Wing and moving to "the Trump Political Operation," Trump said.
It is Trump's first major personnel move since Democrats won the House and Senate on Tuesday. Hardliners had blamed Wiles for steering him away from his most aggressive policies.
Miller is the architect of the mass-deportation campaign, the Alien Enemies Act flights to El Salvador's CECOT prison, and the administration's third-country deportation deals. In May 2025 he said the White House was "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus.
The latest
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Friday that Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, will become White House chief of staff on Monday, Nov. 9, replacing Susie Wiles.
The announcement, posted to Truth Social, is Trump's first major personnel move since Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections. Trump called Miller "one of my most trusted advisors" and said Wiles "has done a great job." He said she will move to the Trump political operation. (CNN, Bloomberg)
Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative based in the Jacksonville area, ran Trump's 2024 campaign and had served as chief of staff since he returned to office in January 2025. She previously managed Ron DeSantis's 2018 campaign for governor and Trump's Florida operations in 2016 and 2020.
Why Wiles is out
Pressure on Wiles built quickly after Tuesday's results. Hardline conservatives had long blamed her for steering Trump away from his most aggressive policies, and calls for her ouster grew in the days after Republicans lost dozens of House seats and the Senate. (Just the News)
Former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney predicted on NewsNation last weekend that Wiles would leave after the midterms, calling it a natural time for a change. (The Hill)
Who is Stephen Miller?
Miller, 41, has been the central figure in Trump's immigration agenda across both terms. In the first term, he drove the travel ban and the family-separation policy at the border. In the second, he has overseen the mass-deportation campaign, the March 2025 invocation of the Alien Enemies Act that sent Venezuelan men to El Salvador's CECOT prison, and the administration's deals with roughly 30 countries to accept deportees who are not their citizens, according to The Guardian.
In May 2025, Miller told reporters the administration was "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge detention in court, and said the decision depended "on whether the courts do the right thing or not." (NBC News)
In November 2025, Human Rights Watch and Cristosal reported that the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT were subjected to systematic beatings and, in some cases, sexual violence, and said the U.S. government had been "complicit in torture, enforced disappearances, and other serious human rights violations." The White House has said the men were criminals. (Human Rights Watch)
Miller has been the subject of repeated controversy over his views on race and immigration. In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center published more than 900 emails he sent to Breitbart editors in 2015 and 2016, in which he shared material from the white nationalist site VDARE and recommended coverage of "The Camp of the Saints," a French novel popular with white nationalists. The White House at the time called the report a smear. Miller has not publicly addressed the emails. (SPLC, NPR)
What the job means
The chief of staff controls access to the president, the flow of paper to his desk and the daily operation of the West Wing. Miller's promotion puts the administration's leading immigration hardliner in charge of the entire White House as Trump prepares to face a Democratic Congress with subpoena power in January.
Whether the move signals a harder line or a reorganization is not yet clear. The White House has not announced who will fill Miller's deputy role or the homeland security adviser post.
FMNN has asked the White House press office for comment and will update this story.
Related reading
Sources
CNN — https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/06/politics/stephen-miller-trump-susie-wiles
Rolling Stone (full Truth Social text) — https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/stephen-miller-named-white-house-chief-of-staff-1235654134/
Just the News — https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/trump-names-stephen-miller-next-chief-staff-starting-monday
NBC News, habeas corpus — https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/top-white-house-adviser-stephen-miller-says-actively-looking-suspendin-rcna205942
Human Rights Watch, CECOT report — https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/12/us/el-salvador-torture-of-venezuelan-deportees
SPLC, 2019 emails — https://splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-leaked-emails-expose-key-white-house-aide-stephen-millers-affinity-white
NPR, White House response — https://www.npr.org/transcripts/779208233
The Guardian via inkl, third-country deals — https://www.inkl.com/news/stephen-miller-leads-new-push-to-boot-immigrant-kids-and-accelerate-third-country-deportations