The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board said President Donald Trump’s firing of chief of staff Susie Wiles signals he will lean harder on loyalists and unpopular policies after the midterms, in an editorial titled “Susie Wiles Takes the Election Fall.”
Trump fired Wiles on Friday and named deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to replace her, with Wiles moving to what Trump called the “Trump Political Operation.”
Trump seems to want “more MAGA cowbell,” wrote the board — a reference to an infamous Saturday Night Live skit.
The board said Wiles appears to be absorbing blame for a defeat Trump largely authored, through policies voters disliked and a strategy of telling them to pretend he was “on the ballot.” They cited a 37 percent approval rating in the exit poll. The board called Wiles a “grown-up” who brought order, added outside voices and restrained schemers, and said yes-men such as housing regulator Bill Pulte were jockeying to succeed her.
The board said Miller is intelligent and a strong communicator but that his message is the problem — he devised Trump’s mass deportation strategy and pushed for a 3,000-a-day migrant arrest quota. An NBC News exit poll found 58 percent of voters said enforcement went too far, noted the board, with 90 percent of them favoring Democrats. They added that Miller defended the Canada and Mexico tariffs and called the Liberation Day tariffs “the most important economic event of our lifetime.”
The board concluded there will be no pivot from those policies, and said Miller’s alliance with Vice President J.D. Vance suggests Vance’s influence will grow.
The board added that Trump may rely on yes-men as his political circle shrinks, and that bad deals with adversaries or a Democratic Congress are risks.
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