The White House chief of staff is the president's top aide. The chief runs the White House staff, decides who and what reaches the president, manages the schedule, and advises on policy and politics. No law creates the job, though, so how much power a chief really has depends on how much the president trusts them and is willing to delegate.
That's the context for Trump's announcement that Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff and, in Trump's words, "one of my most trusted advisors," takes over from Susie Wiles on Monday, November 9, 2026. The title passes from one person to the next unchanged. The actual authority doesn't have to.
Is the job written into law?
No. No law requires a president to have a chief of staff. The post is a political appointment that needs no Senate confirmation and serves at the president's pleasure. Even so, every president since Truman has had one, though as explained below, some went years without one.
That's why coverage that focuses only on who the new chief is leaves part of the story out. A chief's power is lent by the president. It isn't a fixed set of powers that comes with the office.
What does the chief do day to day?
Ballotpedia lists the typical duties: hiring staff, deciding how information gets reported, controlling the flow of information to the president, keeping the schedule, and advising on politics and policy. The chief or a deputy also travels with the president and previews speeches and briefings.
The White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan research group that studies presidential staffing, sorts the work into two groups: managing the staff, and advising on policy, politics, and administration. The advising side includes bargaining with Congress and the Cabinet.
James Baker, who held the job twice, summed up the information part: the chief needs to know "what the President is telling people and what they're telling him."
The job has had some memorable nicknames. Eisenhower's chief, Sherman Adams, was called the "Abominable No-man," and Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief, described the job as "the heat shield", meaning the person who takes blame so the president doesn't.
What's the difference between a "strong" and a "weak" chief?
A strong chief requires everything meant for the president to cross their desk. A weak chief doesn't, so aides, Cabinet members, and outside callers can go around them.
Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers, a history of chiefs of staff, says Nixon's chief H.R. Haldeman set the template for the modern empowered chief. He argues that presidents who skipped a strong chief paid for it:
- Ford tried a "spokes of the wheel" setup, with five or six advisers of equal rank. It failed.
- Carter was overwhelmed and appointed a chief after two and a half years.
- Clinton's first chief, his friend Mack McLarty, wasn't given enough authority and was replaced by Leon Panetta.
When Panetta arrived, he found no chain of command and no organization chart, so building one was his first job. Clinton had started out letting many senior aides walk in to see him.
Whipple also says that making a friend the chief is risky, because friends struggle to give the president unwelcome news. He cites Nancy Reagan's remark that the most important word in the title is "staff," not "chief."
How has Trump used his chiefs before?
Loosely, at least at first. In the first six months of Trump's first term, aides had many ways into the Oval Office, and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had little control over who saw the president. The White House Transition Project called Trump an outlier. He let senior and deputy staff come in without enforced rules, and he didn't reliably tell his chiefs about his contacts, especially phone calls.
His first-term chiefs didn't last long. According to Wikipedia's tally:
- Reince Priebus: 192 days
- John Kelly: about 1 year and 155 days
- Mick Mulvaney (acting): 1 year and 89 days
- Mark Meadows: 295 days
How long do chiefs usually last?
Whipple puts the average at just over 18 months. Wiles began on January 20, 2025. If she leaves on November 9, 2026, she will have served about 21 and a half months. That's longer than the average and longer than any of Trump's first-term chiefs on the list above.
Where did the job come from?
Before the modern job existed, its duties were handled by the president's private secretary. Examples include Cortelyou under Theodore Roosevelt, Tumulty under Wilson, and Howe under FDR. Controlling access and running the schedule was a separate job held by the appointments secretary.
Until 1939, the White House had no legal or budget authority to create staff positions. FDR's "Brain Trust" advisers were paid through jobs at federal agencies. That year Congress approved creating the Executive Office of the President.
The post itself dates to 1946, when it was created as "Assistant to the President." It took the chief of staff title in 1961. The first holder was John R. Steelman, who served Truman from December 1946 to January 1953.
Have presidents ever gone without one?
Yes, which is the clearest evidence that the job is optional. Kennedy and Johnson used appointments secretaries instead of a chief. The chief didn't take over the president's schedule until Nixon. Carter, reacting against how much power the job had gathered under Nixon and Ford, promised in 1976 not to appoint a chief and went two and a half years without one.
Only one person has held the job twice or served two presidents: James Baker, who was chief of staff to Reagan and later to George H.W. Bush.
How big is the operation the chief runs?
It's larger than it used to be. The Carter and Reagan White Houses had at most 11 and 15 Assistants to the President, the top staff rank. That number later grew to 25. In Obama's final year, seven of them worked inside the chief of staff's own office, which pulled senior staff away from other offices.
The wider White House staff is in the hundreds. Official salary disclosures to Congress showed 377 staffers with combined pay of $35.8 million in 2017, compared with 472 staffers and $39.8 million in 2016. Those figures are the latest in the sources reviewed here. Current numbers weren't available.
What don't we know yet about how Miller will do the job?
Two things. The sources reviewed here don't say whether Miller will keep the policy roles he has held as a deputy, or who would take them over. And it's not yet clear whether he'll run a strict, strong-chief office or the looser setup Trump preferred in his first term, when aides often went around the chief. History suggests the answer depends less on Miller than on how much access Trump lets him control.