While former president Donald Trump is too superstitious to plan out a post-victory staff, the MAGA world around his campaign is swirling with chatter about three key figures that could be his chief of staff.
Trump’s co-campaign manager Susie Wiles, former Trump White House domestic policy director Brooke Rollins and former Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy are all being entertained by the chinwagging denizens of Trump World, according to a report in Politico.
Some even suggested infighting is already underway.
Rollins, a conservative Texas lawyer, has been floated as a potentially “great” chief of staff by no less than Trump himself, who also apparently likes that “she’s tall” and “got the look,” the New York Times reported earlier this month. She told the newspaper she has “had zero conversations with President Trump or his team about this.”
Politico reported, however, that a gaggle of zealous MAGA insiders are wary of Rollins, who is a relative newcomer to Trump World (she was first appointed by Trump in 2018 to the Office of American Innovation, and was only tapped to head the White House’s domestic policy towards the end of his term in May 2020.
She then helped form a pro-business think tank, the America First Policy Institute, which some MAGA diehards fear is too friendly with old school laissez-faire conservatism, which is at odds with Trump’s tariff-loving protectionist rhetoric.
Politico noted that AFPI had been variously hacked for almost a year, including by the Chinese, news of which leaked after her name was publicly floated as chief of staff. “The knife-fighting is underway,” one Trump World confidant told the news outlet. “Someone’s like, ‘Oh, she wants to be chief of staff? Well, she can’t even stop her own organization from getting hacked.’”
Wiles, who heads up Trump’s campaign alongside LaCivita, has been credited with professionalizing the Trump operation and, almost all the MAGA insiders Politico spoke to said, would have the chief of staff job if she wants it—he rewarded former RNC chair Reince Priebus with the chief of staff job in 2016 for his campaign.
The prickly and combative Trump is also apparently trusting of Wiles, who is upfront with him about disagreements in the face of his oft tempestuous disposition.
The knock against Wiles, the MAGA insider faithful told Politico, is that she has limited government experience in Washington, and what experience she does have in D.C. dates back to the 1970s and 80s. Some are also unsure about whether she even wants the job after the long and stressful haul of a national campaign.
The final name being bandied about is McCarthy, whose name has been whispered because he has legislative chops and experience helping to push a Trump agenda through Congress. On the other hand, a handful of insiders told Politico they weren’t sure McCarthy would even be interested now that he’s out of politics.
On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times reported in April that McCarthy wants revenge on the Republicans who joined with Democrats to force him out as House speaker, especially Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz.
“He wants to hold to account those who pushed him out,” a California political operative close to McCarthy told paper. In which case only time will tell if revenge, is a dish best served MAGA.
