But, in recent days, MAGA voices have suggested that the chief is to blame for the president’s worsening public perception. 

Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of The National Pulse and a close ally of Trump’s former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, directly linked Wiles to the early November poll from CNN showing Trump’s disapproval rating rising to 63%, an all-time high.

“I just scanned the data on this. Methodology looks similar to when they had Trump at his highs earlier this year. So what’s changed?” he wrote in a post, sharing the poll’s findings. “Incumbency and a trend back to the GOP norm: with Susie Wiles vetoing anything remotely MAGA, the White House agenda has trended back to a more corporate-friendly GOP median, which is leading Dems leading on the generic ballot question for the first time since 2022.”

Furthermore, Wiles continues to run afoul of the “Make America Healthy Again” crowd, supporters of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ostensibly absorbed into Trump’s MAGA coalition after Kennedy endorsed him last year.

In August, she convinced Trump to rehire an HHS vaccine regulator the president had fired at the recommendation of conservative activist Laura Loomer.

And just this week, multiple popular MAHA influencers claimed that Wiles is actively undermining Kennedy’s ability to run HHS, or at least pursue all of the policies favored by his movement.

Tiffany Cianci, who has some half-million followers across her social media channels, claimed during a Thursday appearance on InfoWars that Wiles convinced Trump to place Kennedy at HHS “to pacify the donor base,” all while planting “people around him to roadblock him.”

“If we had put somebody that was actually MAHA-aligned… we could be making massive differences right now,” she stated. “Instead, we gave the people a carrot in Bobby, and then cut him off at the knees with the agencies he needed to work with.”

The blowback from the MAHA crowd was deafening, with hundreds, if not thousands, calling for her firing on social media, to the extent that Kennedy himself issued a statement on Friday defending Wiles.

“The MAHA movement has no better friend in Washington than [Wiles], who has supported every effort to end the chronic disease epidemic and restore health freedom to every American,” he wrote on X. “A small number of chaos agents are now targeting Susie out of ignorance or malice. Let’s focus on our extraordinary achievements to date and the monumental work that still needs to be done. I refuse to be distracted. Let’s build our coalition instead of splintering it.”

White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Washington Examiner that “there is no better champion for President Trump and the Make America Healthy Again movement than Susie Wiles.”

“Susie’s leadership has helped the Administration clinch one historic MAHA agenda victory after another: from getting artificial ingredients out of our food supply to restoring Gold Standard Science in our public health bodies,” he wrote in a statement. “There is no aide that is more indispensable to President Trump and his agenda than Susie Wiles. Those who are complaining aren’t doing it in good faith and they clearly are not aligned with the historic MAGA agenda she has helped President Trump build since 2016.”

Multiple Trumpworld insiders, some of whom have been with the president since 2016, sought to downplay the anger at Trump’s chief of staff, doubting that the president would fire her after the past five years.

Wiles, a lifelong Republican, had established herself as an effective GOP operator in Florida long before partnering up with Trump. She helped run Trump’s Florida operation for both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns before taking over as campaign manager for his winning 2024 effort and was offered her White House job in recognition of her service.

One longtime, out-of-government adviser to the president suggested that MAHA’s anger with Wiles really stems from the recent drug pricing agreement the administration had reached with Pfizer, which, since the coronavirus pandemic, had become a frequent target for vaccine skeptics within the president’s base.

“People don’t want to blame Trump because he’s friendly with [Pfizer CEO] Albert Bourla, so instead they decide it’s someone else’s fault, especially Susie,” that person stated. “No one’s ever willing to blame him. It’s always like that. In the first term, it was always Jared [Kushner] behind everything, right? It was never Trump.”

Martha Kumar, a professor emeritus at Towson University who also sits on the board of directors for the White House Historical Association, similarly suggested that Trump’s base appears to be projecting dissatisfaction with his performance in office onto Wiles.

“A basic principle of White House life is the President is never wrong. His constituents fault his coterie of aides, not the President. First among those who bear the weight of blame is the chief of staff,” she explained. “In any administration, a basic part art of a chief’s job is to take the heat for the President.”

A second veteran Republican operative who worked directly with Trump’s campaign last year had this to say when asked if Wiles was secure in her current position.

“A-bajillion percent. If she got fired, I would buy gold and ammunition.”

A GOP consultant with a focus on Florida politics told the Washington Examiner that Wiles is “as strong with the president as any member of the inner core, and arguably any chief of staff in modern times.”

“Hers is a position that by definition receives all of the undeserved flak but few of the hard-earned plaudits,” that person continued. “She fundamentally and fully believes in the reimagining of government that lies at the heart of the MAGA movement, which is she still commands the allegiance of the movement and the President of the United States.”

One former senior Trump White House official noted to the Washington Examiner that “the anger directed at Susie isn’t new,” and added that, “She certainly doesn’t need anyone to fight her battles for her.”

“I think that, just because she isn’t out doing the podcast circuit and isn’t, like, doesn’t have this huge public persona like a lot of the rest of the Cabinet, then there’s this feeling among some voters that ‘oh, she isn’t really one of us,’ or ‘she’s not really loyal to the president,” the former official explained. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d say she’s easily the most important person working at the White House right now. Well, except for President Trump. But Susie — she’s kind of the glue that keeps it all together, all these different corners of the Trump team, and makes sure things run as smooth as possible.”

To that point, Trump’s selection of Wiles to be his top White House aide was already drawing criticism from the right before he even entered office.

Bannon himself knocked the pick last November during an episode of his show on Real America’s Voice, even while suggesting he would trust Trump’s judgment on the matter.

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“You’re not going to have all MAGA in the White House. You’re not going to have all MAGA in these Cabinet positions; it’s just not going to happen. You’re going to get some, but there are just going to be some establishment people there. That’s just reality,” he stated at the time.

“Is Susie perfect? No, she’s a [Gov. Ron] DeSantis person, a [former President George W.] Bush person. I got that,” Bannon continued. “Are there better MAGA people who might make a better chief of staff? Hey, maybe. But President Trump kind of wanted her. Doesn’t he get a vote? Doesn’t he get a say so? Hasn’t he done enough?”