Tipsheet

Why Did POLITICO Post, Delete Such a Post About Susie Wiles?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 09, 2024 4:00 PM

On Thursday night, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had selected Susie Wiles as his Chief of Staff for his incoming administration, making her the first woman to hold such a role. While one might think that such prominence would only be celebrated, POLITICO has put out some rather interesting posts about Wiles, which they ended up having to delete.

When it comes to a Friday post that has since been deleted, Karoline Leavitt, the National Press Secretary for the Trump-Vance campaign, called out the outlet for how POLITICO "hates Trump so much, they ignore [Wiles'] accomplishments," even bringing up the idea that she's an "enemy of democracy," a common refrain from Democrats against their political opponents. "Absolutely absurd," Leavitt also noted.

Francis Brennan also shared a screenshot of a post that indeed questioned if Wiles is "a MAGA hero or an enemy of democracy?" He also noted how this stood in stark contrast to a POLITICO post from almost four years ago, with a smiling picture of Symone Sanders, who was at the time going to be on the Communications team for the Biden-Harris White House. 

After such a post was put out on Friday morning, the outlet later took those down and reposted articles on Wiles, with claims that their post in question did not reflect the accompanying article.

Of particular interest is the article POLITICO Magazine article from April 26, which referred to her as "The Most Feared and Least Known Political Operative in America." The subheadline also questioned in part if she was "a MAGA hero or an enemy of democracy?"

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The piece went on to refer to the events of January 6, 2021 as an "insurrection," and also went after Wiles not long after in the piece, specifically for daring to work with Trump:

But coursing, too, through my conversations were not just questions I had for these scores of people but questions these people had for me — earnest inquiries from types who are perhaps not so accustomed to such doubt. Why is she working for him? And why does it seem to be working so well? Republicans and Democrats alike who know her and respect her and respect her work — they struggle to explain it. People who have considered themselves confidants and friends — they talk and they text, not so much with her as with each other, perplexed. In her usually calm disposition, in what most of them consider her general good sense, some of them find some small solace — at least he, they say, is listening to her. For others, though, it’s that placid mien and level head that’s in some sense precisely the source of the confusion. Liberals and even anti-Trump conservatives sketch analogies to the most odious authoritarians and see Wiles therefore by extension as the kind of associate who’s smart enough and sane enough to know better — and without whom any would-be dictator would be unable to get or wield such potentially destructive power. They see her as an accomplice.

...Wiles is no Trump puppeteer, but his successes, which are in no small measure also successes of hers, have engendered a level of condemnation and even just befuddlement that almost demands the kind of public accounting and self-reflection in which she’s never engaged. Wiles, after all, used to work and work hard for Republicans who say they’ve never voted for Trump and never will.

....

...Some see in Trump the possibilities of the worst dictatorial tendencies. “Susie Wiles is way too smart of a human being and way too sophisticated a political operator to not understand,” Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster and MSNBC analyst, told me. “She knows who Trump is.” 

...

“Susie’s primary qualification for handling Donald Trump is her training in handling her father. She is an expert in unstable, dysfunctional, famous men. She knows when she can help, and she knows when not to try to help, and for that they’re grateful,” the longtime Tallahassee operative Mac Stipanovich told me.

...

She went to work for Trump in the 2016 cycle. “I said, ‘Susie, I don’t think this is who you are,’” John Delaney told the Tampa Bay Times. She was, after all, a self-identifying, “card-carrying member of the GOP establishment.” And the sexual misconduct, the conspiracy theories, the attacks on John McCain and Gold Star parents, “and on and on,” as the former Tampa reporter Adam Smith wrote at the time — “the Donald Trump that I have come to know does not behave that way,” she said. “The Donald Trump that I have come to know,” she said, “I would feel 101 percent confident in his ability to do the right thing.” And then she went to work for him again in the 2020 cycle, and then again, of course, in the still raw wake of Jan. 6 — “clearly,” I said here now outside the Starbucks, “not a breaking point for you …”

She paused.

“I didn’t love it,” she said.

“It wasn’t so …”

“I didn’t love it,” she said again.

“… odious to you …”

“Well,” Wiles said, “I didn’t think he caused it.”

What was that sound? Compartmentalization? Accommodation? Rationalization? Why is she working for him? And why does it seem to be working so well? She’s nearly nine years in. A breeze blew.

It's also quite the take to highlight Wiles' status as "an outsider, with little experience in the federal government," seeming to undermine what accomplishments she has had in campaigns, including but not limited to how she helped Trump win on Tuesday. 

While Democrats insisted on making Harris the running mate for President Joe Biden based on being a black woman, and then installed her as their nominee in late July, Trump looks to be putting women in roles of truly critical importance. Yet we still get such takes from POLITICO, and even confusingly deleted posts over it.

Sure enough, users took notice over X.