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🌊 The World’s Most Powerful Woman
An exclusive interview on how Susie Wiles has brought order to the White House
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By Max Towey
In August of 2025, you may have forgotten how chaotic the Trump White House was in the summer of 2017.
Nothing epitomized this more than a phone call from the newly-promoted communications director Anthony Scaramucci to New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza that would’ve made mid-meltdown Charlie Sheen blush.
Reeling from press leaks and staff turnover, “The Mooch” went nuclear on West Wing leadership. He first attacked Chief of Staff Reince Priebus: “A f*****g paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” then chief strategist Steve Bannon: “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c***.”
Then the White House leakers: “What I want to do is I want to f*****g kill all the leakers.” Then he leaked a story himself to the New Yorker: “Reince Priebus – if you want to leak something – he’ll be asked to resign very shortly,” The Mooch said.
While the irony of leaking this on a call condemning leakers was evidently lost on The Mooch, the truth wasn’t: Trump dumped Priebus on July 28, 2017, making him the shortest-tenured non-interim White House chief of staff in history. Priebus likened his experience as Trump’s chief of staff to “riding an untamed horse.” Trump, meanwhile, compared the former RNC chair to a different animal: A rat who “scurried around” the West Wing and regularly leaked to the press.
Trump replaced Priebus with General John Kelly as chief of staff. He immediately booted The Mooch from his position as White House communications director after just six days on the job. Evidently, the law-and-order Kelly was not too enthused about the Mooch’s promise to “f*****g kill all the leakers” and “fire the entire [comms department]” in the next week. Kelly’s life, however, was about to get worse.
On August 12, the “Unite the Right” rally took place in Charlottesville, resulting in a flurry of bad press – supercharged by the “very fine people” hoax – and the firing of Steve Bannon days later.
By that point, just eight months into the term, two cabinet secretaries, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had all left the White House. Among Trump’s “A Team” – the 65 top White House decision-makers – the turnover rate was 14% in the first six months. By the end of his first year, that had grown to 35%, dwarfing the first year of Obama’s first-term administration (9%), Bush’s (6%), and Clinton’s (11%). The next highest turnover rate among modern presidents was Ronald Reagan at 17%.
The legacy media predictably had a field day with the chaos that summer: The Atlantic headlined, “Donald Trump Is an Impossible Boss,” and the NYT, “Donald Trump Is the Worst Boss in Washington.” In fairness to the legacy media, Trump did struggle to work with just about everyone: John Kelly was soon out, then Mick Mulvaney, and finally Mark Meadows. By the end of his term, Trump’s “A Team” had experienced 92% turnover – the highest on record.
When Trump returned to the White House, so did the question: Was it possible to have a stable Trump White House? Could anyone lock down the ranks?
Enter Susie Wiles.
Under Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump’s second-term White House has been unrecognizable compared to his first. To understand her approach, we spoke with her former boss, former Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton.
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Editor’s Note
Speaking of Florida, Roca just touched down in the Sunshine State yesterday, where Max T is covering a few stories on life in the swamps and Palm Beach, among other topics. He’ll be writing those here in the near future. In the meantime, we want to hear from you: Can peace and quiet reign in the Trump White House for long? What will happen next? Let us know by replying here.
And thanks to those who wrote in yesterday about our story on free speech. We’re sharing a few of those emails below.
Reece wrote:
It's so tempting to make speech that seems unarguably bad illegal but once you ban anything how do you draw the line. I am of the opinion that under the law all speech should be free but then we as a society have the responsibility to collectively shun the voices we consider unacceptable, like those of hate. You are free to use whatever slurs you want under the law but others are free to shun you for it.
So to that Canadian, others have their own right to free speech to call you a racist, that isn't a violation of free speech. But it is when the government prosecutes you for the speech.
The internet is a whole other beast because the shunning doesn't work so well when you can hide behind a screen, but its also easier to over shun through the sensationalism and cancel culture. The conversation of free speech on something like twitter is interesting and honestly I don't know the solution.
Thanks for your continued effort to report neutrally
Cathleen wrote:
This is very interesting. What feels different now is the reach of that speech. In the 1960 it took a lot more effort to reach people with tv / printed paper. Today news can circle the world in minutes with greater impact and with untruths believed before they can be pulled back (as with your story regarding the “ historian” and the holocaust).
And Matt wrote:
So, where does Trump’s January 6th speech fall into this ruling? From this article it seems his speech incited immediate riot and violence and would be illegal.
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Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
—Max and Max