President Donald Trump’s influential chief of staff has absolutely no influence at all, a new political analysis contends.
Susie Wiles’ long held reputation as the rare White House staffer who can “manage” Trump — Politico’s Michael Kruse praised her as “an experienced operator” who built a career on “shaping perceptions” — was ripped to shreds Sunday by Salon’s Heather Digby Parton.
“Susie Wiles has no influence over Trump at all,” wrote Parton. “Just like Mark Meadows, she’s essentially sitting on a couch and scrolling on her phone while the world burns.”
Parton’s analysis repeatedly compares Wiles to Meadows, whom author Chris Whipple once dubbed the “worst chief of staff in history.”
The problem, argued Parton, is that the White House chief of staff wields incredible power, but is expected to maintain discipline.
“The role of the position is multi-faceted, managing the flow of information to the Oval Office and keeping them from becoming distracted by people pushing their own agendas and distorting the president’s understanding of the facts,” she wrote. “The chief of staff has hiring and firing power over the West Wing, basically running the day-to-day operation of the presidency.”
While Parton credited Wiles with managing Trump’s campaign and becoming the first female chief of staff in history, she criticized Wiles for her laissez-faire attitude when it comes to reigning in Trump.
“She seems to have found the key to managing Trump, which is to not manage him at all,” Parton wrote. “One imagines his mother reached the same conclusion around the time he reportedly gave his second-grade music teacher a black eye because ‘he didn’t know anything about music.’”
As proof, Parton points first to Wiles interviews with Whipple for his feature in Vanity Fair, in which Trump’s chief of staff “more or less admitted” that she refuses to discuss important issues with the president.
“Wiles revealed that she doesn’t have ‘these seminal moments where you have to go in and tell the president what he wants to do is unconstitutional or will cost lives,’” Parton noted. “That pretty much says it all.”
Parton argued if Wiles did have any influence, Trump wouldn’t have appointed her to the board of John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
“If she had any clout, you would think she could have talked him out of his petty obsession of adding his name to a living memorial to a revered, slain president — a disgusting act of desecration,” the columnist concluded.
“But with Trump, there’s nothing too small on which to fixate and, in any case, this crusade to remake Washington, D.C., in his own image overwhelms all other concerns, including economic crises and war.”
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