US President Donald Trump announced that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller will replace Susie Wiles as chief of staff, effective Monday.
The announcement marks the most senior dismissal in the administration since Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in the midterm elections three days earlier, losing control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
It is also one of the most significant dismissals of Trump's second term, alongside the removal of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in 2025 and Attorney General Pam Bondi in April 2026.
Wiles, 69, led the campaign that returned Trump to the White House in 2024 and was appointed White House chief of staff, becoming the first woman to hold the position. Trump nicknamed her the "Ice Maiden" for her preference for staying behind the scenes. After going through four chiefs of staff during his first term, Trump has now kept Wiles in the role longer than any of her predecessors.
US media credited Wiles with the relative discipline Trump displayed during his campaign, and she was seen as one of the few people capable of telling him "no." In March, Wiles announced that she had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer but continued working while undergoing surgery and treatment. Six months later, she announced that she was "cancer-free."
Miller, 41, has served as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser since the start of Trump's second term. Trump described him in a statement Thursday evening as "one of my most loyal advisers," while former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously called him "Trump's brain."
Miller is widely regarded as the chief architect of the administration's hard-line immigration policies. During Trump's first term, he was also a driving force behind the executive order barring entry to the US from several Muslim-majority countries and the policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border.
Miller is considered one of the most controversial figures in the administration, even among Republicans. He pushed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make "at least 3,000 arrests every day," in his words. After federal immigration agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year, he described one of those killed as a "would-be assassin."
