Updated Nov. 4, 2026, 4:36 p.m. ET. Seat counts are unofficial, from AP race calls; control is per NBC News projections.
A day after Republicans lost both chambers of Congress, some of President Donald Trump’s loudest supporters want his chief of staff gone. Susie Wiles is “facing calls to resign,” and those calls are “growing louder by the minute,” The Daily Beast reported Wednesday.
Republicans lost seven Senate seats and at least 22 House seats, according to AP race calls, and Democrats will control both chambers in January, according to NBC News projections. For the base, the question is simple: Is the chief of staff still serving the president’s agenda?
Who is calling for Wiles to go
Caroline Sunshine, a former deputy communications director for Trump’s 2024 campaign, told Fox News that Wiles should step down:
“Susie Wiles needs to do the right thing and resign. And she needs to tender her resignation to the president before he has to ask for it.”
Caroline Sunshine on Fox News, Nov. 4, 2026
In a separate overnight segment, she said “the chief of staff and anybody involved in what was 100 percent a preventable election wipeout for us just need to take accountability and resign,” according to a Media Matters transcript.
Derrick Evans, a former West Virginia state lawmaker, posted at 2:34 a.m. ET Wednesday to his more than 860,000 followers on X:
“Susie Wiles should resign immediately.”
@DerrickEvans4WV, Nov. 4, 2026
Conservative commentator JD Rucker argued Trump needs a different chief of staff.
“Trump should fire Susie Wiles, who most Republicans have an inexplicable affection for. Her role doesn’t even need Senate confirmation. Trump needed a wartime consigliere and Wiles was Tom Hagen. Nice, practical, but not suited for these midterms and definitely not good for the next two years.”
@JDRucker, Nov. 4, 2026
“Susie Wiles has to go,” wrote Bill Hennessy, a co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, according to his X bio.
Among aides at a bar on election night, a “general consensus emerged” that Wiles “has to go,” The Daily Beast reported, citing the Daily Mail.
Six failures critics point to
1. No winning midterm plan or message
On Oct. 17, Reuters reported that Trump was blaming senior aides for “a faltering midterm strategy” and that some White House officials and allies had “questioned Wiles’ oversight of the political operation.” Insiders told the Daily Mail she repeatedly promised Trump a win. In December 2025, she told Vanity Fair, “We’re going to win the midterms,” The Daily Beast noted.
2. Staffing, starting with Pam Bondi
Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2 following controversies over her handling of the Epstein files, Spectrum News reported. According to The New York Times, Wiles was Bondi’s “most important ally in the West Wing” and called her a “sister,” and she “made a passionate argument for retaining Bondi until the end.” The Times reported that Bondi’s missteps “alienated Republicans on Capitol Hill.”
3. A White House that kept leaking
In March, Wiles warned staff that “unauthorized leaks will not be tolerated and are subject to sanction up to and including termination.” That memo itself leaked to Politico in May, TheWrap reported. In July, CNN reported that Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel helped orchestrate a leak investigation, setting up what one source called a “war room” in the West Wing. The leaks continued: in October, Politico’s Playbook reported that Trump had been asking allies about possible replacements for Wiles.
4. Her own interviews
In 11 interviews with Vanity Fair published in December 2025, Wiles said Bondi “completely whiffed” on the Epstein files and called Vice President JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist for a decade,” CBS News reported. Wiles called the story “a disingenuously framed hit piece” but did not deny the quotes. Vance responded, “we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.”
5. Questions about the political shop in the home stretch
In early October, James Blair, a deputy chief of staff on leave to run Trump’s super PAC, and Chris LaCivita traveled to Republika Srpska in Bosnia, where the two were paid to advise the regional government, Reuters reported, citing The New York Times. Senior White House officials questioned why Blair was taking on overseas work in the final stretch, three people told Reuters. One person familiar with internal discussions said Wiles approved the trip without informing Trump. Wiles did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment. Trump called the pair “outside consultants” and warned he would “terminate them, immediately!” if he found a conflict of interest.
6. A press secretary’s five-day exit
Trump named Katie Zacharia, a Trump Media & Technology Group adviser, press secretary on Oct. 9, NBC News reported. She started Oct. 12 and left Oct. 16, after five days on the job, a 14-minute debut briefing and a Fox News interview in which Sean Hannity asked, “You went to Pepperdine Law School, but you did not pass the bar exam, correct?” and she answered, “Correct,” The Independent reported.
One report pointed at Wiles. “Susie gave Fox News the kill order, but Zacharia was an obviously bad choice,” an unnamed senior administration official alleged to the Daily Mail. Politico first reported that Wiles helped set up the Hannity interview, then corrected it after a White House legal demand, saying “she did not play a direct role in setting up the interview.” Texts obtained by the New York Post show Zacharia sought the appearances herself. As chief of staff, Wiles runs the White House staff, though the Post reported she did not sign off on the hire in advance.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung dismissed the claims as “breathless speculation,” and Fox News said Hannity “decides who he interviews and what he asks his guests, period,” The Independent reported.
| Critics’ complaint | What critics cite | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Midterm plan | “Faltering midterm strategy”; “We’re going to win the midterms” | Reuters; Vanity Fair |
| Staffing | Defended Bondi “until the end” before her firing | The New York Times |
| Leaks | Her anti-leak memo leaked; leak probe; replacement talk leaked | TheWrap; CNN; Politico |
| Interviews | Vanity Fair remarks on Bondi and Vance | CBS News |
| Political shop | Approved Blair’s Bosnia trip without telling Trump, one person told Reuters | Reuters |
| Press secretary | Unnamed official alleged a “kill order”; Politico corrected its report; White House and Fox deny | Daily Mail; Politico; The Independent |
The case for keeping her
Trump has stood by her. After Politico’s October report, he called it “TOTAL FAKE NEWS” and said in a statement, as quoted by The Daily Beast: “Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff — there is a reason for that. She has been with me since the beginning, is my trusted advisor, and has my COMPLETE confidence.”
The next day, Trump called her “smart” and “tough” and said, “Susie is here, and she’s going to be here for a long time,” according to Reuters. White House spokesman Davis Ingle dismissed the critics as “armchair experts peddling their baseless speculation.” A source close to the White House told Reuters she “has effectively kept that machine going.”
On election night, Wiles struck a defiant tone with aides. “Anyone who thinks President Trump or this team is going to take our foot off the gas over the next two years is sorely mistaken,” she said, according to a White House source familiar with her remarks who spoke to Politico Playbook.
What it means for the base and 2028
With Democrats taking over the Senate and the House in January, the president faces a Democratic agenda in Congress, with subpoena power to investigate his administration, as Reuters noted. Whoever runs the White House will shape how Trump fights back and what the party carries into 2028.
As Sunshine put it in the overnight segment, per Media Matters: “Tonight was not a failure for the president. Tonight was his base saying, we still like you, we just don’t like the direction that you’re taking us in.”
Trump’s supporters are not walking away from him; they are asking whether his team heard the voters. Whether Wiles stays is the president’s decision alone, and so far he has backed her publicly.
Sources: reporting and posts as linked; seat counts from AP race calls and control projections from NBC News as of Nov. 4, 2026.
Featured photo: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
