Three rival power blocs in Trump’s orbit are maneuvering over who could succeed Susie Wiles as the president considers a possible West Wing shake-up after the midterm elections, according to seven insiders who spoke to Our News Outlet.
The competing camps include Wiles’ loyalists, allies of Jared Kushner and members of the longtime MAGA establishment.
People aligned with Wiles are promoting deputy national security adviser Mike Needham. Kushner’s network is backing special envoy Steve Witkoff and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
The MAGA old guard, meanwhile, is rallying behind deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and federal housing chief Bill Pulte. Either appointment would represent a sharp departure from the disciplined structure Wiles has built around the White House.
A separate wildcard is also circulating: John “Johnny Mac” McEntee, a MAGA “OG” who began as a Trump campaign volunteer before becoming the president’s personal aide in 2015.
Choosing McEntee would echo the final year of Trump’s first presidency, when he led the personnel office and removed officials viewed as insufficiently loyal to the president.
“John is really in a different category. It’s so much more impactful and just nothing like Stephen or Bill,” a senior administration official said.
Politico reported Thursday that Trump had been consulting allies about Wiles and considering possible replacements.
But on Friday, Trump told reporters there was “zero chance” he would remove Wiles. “She’s phenomenal,” he said. “Susie is here and she’s going to be here for a long time.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles listens as Donald Trump speaks with reporters on the White House South Lawn on October 6
McEntee ended an 18-month Instagram silence last month by sharing photos with Trump and Pulte at the president’s Virginia golf course. “Patriots in control,” he captioned the post
Rollins, Witkoff, Miller, Needham and McEntee were identified by Our News Outlet on Tuesday as names on “the list” of possible contenders (pictured: a mock-up of a text message exchange with a Our News Outlet source)
Wiles allies James Blair and Chris LaCivita are facing scrutiny after the New York Times reported that each had received hundreds of thousands of dollars to advise the Republic of Srpska, a pro-Russia autonomous territory in the Balkans, on its elections.
The following day, Trump said he would “terminate” the pair—who oversee his midterm operation—if their outside work created a conflict of interest. Their super PAC maintained that both men had continued working fully on the midterm effort.
The Times also reported that Wiles’ daughter, Katie, traveled to the Bosnian Serb territory in August with a Texas energy executive who was examining a potential pipeline project. Her lobbying firm said she had not discussed the matter with any US government official.
“[Opposition research] is flooding to POTUS every hour, destroying Susie Wiles and her team, especially LaCivita and Blair,” a source close to Trump told Our News Outlet.
Our News Outlet reported in June that Wiles was privately preparing an exit plan for after the November midterms. At the time, she denied that she was leaving, saying she was “not going anywhere.”
Two days before Politico published its report, Our News Outlet named Rollins, Witkoff, Miller, Needham and McEntee as possible candidates on “the list.” A second source has since confirmed that all five are considered to be “actually fighting for the job.”
A former Trump adviser said the president understands he is likely to suffer losses in the November 3 midterms. “He knows internally and has told people that he knows that he’s not going to win,” the former adviser told Our News Outlet. “Definitely going to lose the House. Potentially lose the Senate.”
Two sources said Wiles’ favored successor is Needham, the former chief executive of Heritage Action. Before becoming deputy national security adviser in May, Needham served as Marco Rubio’s chief of staff in the Senate and later at the State Department.
A Trump ally cast Needham as ‘kind of a continuation of Susie,’ but saw a snag: ‘The only problem is she doesn’t have any people. Like, no one has the stature to do it.’
‘Rollins is seen as someone you can control, and the Wiles camp loves that,’ a government source said.
Rollins said that she had ‘no plans or interest to leave’ her role for any other in the administration and added, ‘My friend Susie Wiles has been the greatest chief of staff President Trump could ask for.’
Trump is also weighing former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, ousted in 2023, whose allies argue he could help the president handle a hostile Democratic Congress, Politico reported.
McCarthy burst out laughing when Our News Outlet called him, and said he needed time to sleep on it before he could comment.
But two sources claimed Wiles is now pushing McCarthy to keep her grip on the West Wing once she is gone.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speaks during the MAHA summit at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Washington on September 29
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is flanked by Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump In Tel Aviv in October, 2025
Mike Needham with Secretary of State Marco Rubio (center) and the US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa (right) at the State Department in April
Trump and Wiles at the White House on October 8
‘Everyone is telling me Susie Wiles sees the writing on the wall and thinks she can install McCarthy to maintain control of the [White House] from the outside as she’s finally relieved of duty,’ the source in Trump’s orbit told Our News Outlet.
The source claimed Wiles wants to convince Trump ‘that McCarthy can help with a hostile Congress’ and will ‘spend her remaining days pushing that on the president.’
‘She tries to move her pawns on the chess board to protect the queen,’ the source added.
The former adviser agreed with that sentiment, calling Wiles ‘a control freak.’
‘She is absolutely trying to control what happens next,’ the former Trump adviser said.
‘The first time I’ve heard his name in two years is today,’ he said of McCarthy. ‘Because no one in conservative space wants that.’
He claimed Wiles ‘was a huge fan of Kevin McCarthy, still is,’ but added: ‘He’s one of them. He’s a swamp dweller.’
The Trump ally disagreed, saying McCarthy ‘would have his own agenda. He would have his own people.’
Kushner’s camp has two ‘realistic shots’ in Witkoff and Rollins because of their ties to the president’s son-in-law, the former adviser said.
‘He is seen as a frontrunner, if not the frontrunner for the job,’ a Trump confidant said of Witkoff.
But the former adviser claimed Kushner was the real power over Trump’s first-term chiefs of staff, and that Trump only caught on in 2021. ‘He was the one calling the shots,’ he said.
A spokesman for Kushner said: ‘Susie Wiles is the best Chief of Staff President Trump has ever had and Jared fully supports her. The successes the President has achieved so far in his second term show the value of everyone working together.’
The MAGA old guard has its own picks in Miller and Pulte, with McEntee lurking on its fringes, though neither of the first two looks likely to end up in the chief’s chair, the sources said.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller (right) and Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp at Joint Base Andrews on October 12
Bill Pulte at the Freedom 250 Great American State Fair on the National Mall on June 24
Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, is ‘not going to take that job,’ the former adviser said of the right-wing favorite. ‘Steve is a chameleon. He survived as long as he has by not being at the top.’
Pulte is also in the mix but is not a serious candidate, sources said, with the former adviser claiming Wiles’ camp set him opposite McCarthy in Politico’s list to make McCarthy look sensible.
The Trump ally said: ‘I know [the president] wouldn’t give Pulte that job, but I do know he likes Pulte.’
Pulte, 38, a homebuilding heir, has run the Federal Housing Finance Agency since March 2025, and used the post to send criminal referrals against Trump foes including Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Wiles tried to have him fired this spring after he allegedly gave Trump the idea of posting an AI image of himself as Jesus, which sparked a row with the Vatican, Our News Outlet has reported.
She reportedly warned Pulte that feeding Trump incendiary posts would cost him his job, and tried to keep him off Air Force One, only for Trump to overrule her.
McEntee’s return to the White House would be a ‘cataclysmic event,’ the former adviser said.
The only way Trump salvages his legacy is to turn ‘anti-corruption,’ fire ‘everybody at the upper echelon of the White House’ and bring in someone like McEntee, he argued.
The MAGA faction’s wish list includes an economic populist agenda for young people, DOGE-style government reform, ending the wars in Ukraine and Iran, a crackdown on H-1B visas and removing ‘Russiagate and other deep staters,’ he said.
A Democratic House would hand Oversight Committee subpoena power to California Representative Robert Garcia.
The former adviser was ‘not even convinced’ Democrats would try to impeach Trump, predicting they would go about ‘taking down the apparatus’ around him instead.
Those who ‘need to be worried’ are Wiles, officials at her level and cabinet secretaries, he said.
Trump’s first term top team including Dan Scavino, Hope Hicks, William Russell and John McEntee, at a rally in Pennsylvania in September 2020
Trump with John McEntee (right) and Bill Pulte (behind McEntee) at his golf club in Virginia last month
Trump with McEntee at the White House in September 2020
Trump will need a team ‘not tarnished by year one and two of the second term’ for when ‘House Democrats send up a helicopter to start dumping subpoenas on the White House,’ he added.
The senior administration official said people very close to the president ‘keep mentioning’ McEntee.
‘This is something the new right wing of the party would want but DC may reject,’ the official added.
Wiles has iced him out of the West Wing all term, two sources said, just as chief of staff John Kelly pushed him out in 2018 over a security clearance dispute.
The 36-year-old former college football quarterback founded a dating app for conservatives after leaving the White House.
Last month he broke an 18-month Instagram hiatus with photos beside Trump and Pulte at the president’s Virginia golf course. ‘Patriots in control,’ he wrote.
‘This is more Susie haters trying to will something into reality, than it is actual reality,’ a source close to the White House told Our News Outlet.
‘What happens if Republicans over-perform and hold the Senate?’ the source asked. ‘This isn’t some far-fetched fantasy either, most of the swing-senate seats will be decided by a point or two one way or the other.’
Trump would then take credit thanks to MAGA Inc spending, the source said, and ‘to the chagrin of anti-Susie people, she will look pretty good to him.’
‘And frankly, even if the midterms are just as bad as predicted, I’m still highly skeptical it ends with her being pushed out,’ the source added.
‘This isn’t the first time people have come after her and she has shown an amazing ability for survival.’
Our News Outlet has contacted the White House and McEntee for comment.
