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Susie Wiles, the unassuming operative powering Donald Trump’s campaign

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SUSIE WILES cannot control everything. Take Donald Trump, her boss: his rants on the campaign trail, his unvetted social-media posts, his questionable guests at Mar-a-Lago. Some of these over the past three years, made her job harder. The Democrats, too, are beyond her reach—their decision to replace Joe Biden, around whom Ms Wiles had designed a campaign, scrambled her plans.

But Ms Wiles, a 67-year-old grandmother who has spent decades helping Republicans get elected in Florida, works hard to control what she can. She is level-headed, highly organised and a problem-solver. With her boxy blazers, mirrored shades and hair so blond it sometimes appears silver, she can seem severe—but is by all accounts warm and affable. She has developed a powerful network of politicians, policy types, lobbyists and reporters. The loyal staffers she has brought over to the Trump campaign are known as the “Florida mafia”.

Her success as de facto manager of Mr Trump’s campaign will depend on what voters do on November 5th. But the low-key Ms Wiles, who avoids photo ops and is reportedly quick to give others credit, has already achieved a lot. Mr Trump left the White House in 2021 as a political pariah. He is on the verge of a triumphant return.

She has acknowledged to Politico that she sees similarities between the former president and her late father, Pat Summerall, an American-football player, who became a famous sports broadcaster, and an alcoholic. Like Mr Trump he was a very hard man to manage. Her mother ensured that the home functioned well in spite of him, before finally convincing him to get treatment.

Ms Wiles grew up prosperous in New Jersey, playing tennis and basketball. She got her start in politics by working for Jack Kemp, a Republican congressman from New York who had been her father’s teammate. She worked for Ronald Reagan, on his presidential campaign and in the White House, and in 1985 moved to Florida with her then husband.

Ms Wiles started a political-consulting firm in Jacksonville and raised two daughters. She worked for three Republican mayors and developed a reputation as a smart, pragmatic and well-connected operative. She helped an unknown businessman named Rick Scott win the governorship (he is now in the Senate). She seems to be motivated more by the challenge of winning a campaign than by ideology. None of her previous bosses, however, has been as challenging as Mr Trump.

Florida was a swing state in 2016, considered by some a bellwether. Mr Trump cold-called her to head up his operation in Florida, where he lived part-time at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach. “As a card-carrying member of the [GOP] establishment, many thought my full-throated endorsement of the Trump candidacy was ill-advised—even crazy,” Ms. Wiles told the New York Times in 2016. After a polling dip he nearly fired her that autumn (a dressing down reportedly delivered while he was eating a steak at Mar-a-Lago), but she insisted she could deliver.

As Florida went, so went the country—for Mr Trump. Ms Wiles then worked for Ron DeSantis, a little-known congressman whose bid for governor was salvaged when Mr Trump endorsed him. He won, but made the unwise decision to cut ties with her. She helped Mr Trump win Florida in the 2020 election, though he lost the presidency. After his defeat, and the January 6th Capitol riot, it was far from certain that he would run again. But in early 2021, when few others would have taken the gamble, she agreed to join the board of a fund-raising committee he was setting up to channel money to midterm races. Within weeks she took control of a chaotic post-White House operation, which was endorsing down-ballot Republican candidates, covering Mr Trump’s allies’ legal fees and charting the ex-president’s next steps. .

By November 2022 he had declared he would run again. Ms Wiles and Chris LaCivita, her campaign co-manager (though in practice not her equal), developed a strategy that would play to their candidate’s strengths. At first Mr DeSantis, who aspired to be the Republicans’ presidential candidate, had more money and a bigger operation in Iowa, where the first Republican primary takes place. So rather than knock on endless doors, they used a lean, targeted plan to identify Trump fans who might not even be registered to vote. They won Iowa in a landslide. In the general election they pushed—successfully, according to poll numbers from July—an utterly simple narrative: Mr Biden was weak, and Mr Trump was strong. They similarly pushed for a bare-bones party platform—no more “textbook-long” treatises, they wrote. The resulting 16-page document bore Mr Trump’s signature policy proposals, rendered in his style (“We are a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE”).

Ms Wiles has claimed to have convinced her boss to do some practical things: for example, urge his supporters to vote by mail and tone down the stolen-election comments. In reality he remains paranoid about election integrity, cannot help but insist that he won in 2020 and has never stayed “disciplined” for long. But his message still resonates, his delivery still thrills, his character flaws still leave many Republicans undeterred and either enthusiastic supporters or ready to hold their noses and vote for him. If enough of them do, Ms Wiles might be heading for an even harder Trump-management job. He may well offer her the job of White House chief of staff.

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Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief

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Who decides what legal terms mean? If it is Donald Trump, God help America

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Economics

Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

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Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.

Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.

Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.

Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.

Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.

People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.

On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.

Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.

Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.

Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.

At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.

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German inflation May 2025

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19 May 2025, Berlin: Apricots are sold at a greengrocer for 7.98 euros per kilogram. Grapes and papaya are also on offer.

Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images

Germany’s annual inflation hit 2.1% in May approaching the European Central Bank’s 2% target but coming in slightly hotter than analyst estimates, preliminary data from statistics office Destatis showed Friday.

The print compares with a 2.2% reading in April and with a Reuters projection of 2%.

The print is harmonized across the euro zone for comparability.

So-called core inflation, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, dipped slightly from April’s 2.8% to 2.9% in May. The closely watched services print meanwhile eased sharply, coming in at 3.4% compared to 3.9% in the previous month.

Energy prices fell markedly for the second month in a row, tumbling by 4.6% in May.

Germany’s consumer price index has been closing in on the European Central Bank’s 2% target over recent months, in a positive signal amid ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook for Europe’s largest economy.

Domestic and global issues have mired expectations for Germany’s financial future.

One the one hand, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs could damage economic growth, given Germany’s status as an export-reliant country, though the potential impact of such duties on inflation remains unclear. But frequent policy shifts and developments have been muddying the picture.

On the other hand, Germany’s newly minted government is starting to get to work and has made the economy a top priority. Questions linger about when and to what extent the new Berlin administration’s policy plans might be realized.

The ECB is set to make its next interest rate decision on June 5, with traders last pricing in an over 96% chance of a quarter point interest rate reduction, according to LSEG data. Back in April, the central bank had cut its deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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