Washington (United States) (AFP) – The ouster of Susie Wiles, his loyal chief of staff after the Republican defeat in the American mid-term elections, extends the list of women ministers or occupying high responsibilities dismissed by Donald Trump since the start of the year.

Published on: 10/11/2026 - 12:18

In the spring of 2025, in the first months of his second term, Donald Trump boasted of being able to “say that we have more women in our government than ever under a Republican presidency in the history of our country”.

There were then eight of them.

A year and a half later, there are only three left, out of more than twenty members, ministers or leading federal officials: Brooke Rollins, at Agriculture, Linda McMahon, at Education, and Kelly Loeffler, at the head of a federal agency dedicated to small businesses.

Half were pushed out in the space of three months in the spring. In chronological order, Kristi Noem, Minister of Homeland Security and face of the anti-immigration offensive wanted by Donald Trump, followed by Pam Bondi, Minister of Justice, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Minister of Labor, and finally Tulsi Gabbard, national intelligence director.

Double standards

“Are there any women left?” Democratic MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez then asked a journalist who asked her who would be the next to suffer the same fate.

“Trump seems to only know how to fire female ministers. If you are a man in the Trump administration, it seems that you are rewarded for your bad behavior,” she added, seeing differential treatment.

“Trump appoints women who he thinks will serve him. The moment that is no longer the case, they are dismissed,” Karrin Vasby Anderson, professor of communications at Colorado State University, told AFP.

“He has undoubtedly fired a lot of men but he continues to support men” like his Defense Minister “Pete Hegseth, despite the fact that almost everyone agrees that the war in Iran was a disaster,” she compares, putting forward a double standard.

It is “revealing that the men he defends most ardently are those who promote a certain form of sexist masculinity (in the Trumpist movement) MAGA. It is clear that Trump feels comfortable when he surrounds himself with this type of man,” analyzes the professor.

Since the start of his second term, Donald Trump has been more forthcoming with the men around him - even those at the heart of criticism or splashed by affairs, such as FBI director Kash Patel.

Male successors

The only step spared was Mike Waltz, removed from his post as national security adviser in May 2025 for inadvertently adding a journalist to a discussion group in which information about US strikes in Yemen was shared. He was nevertheless appointed ambassador to the UN shortly after.

All those sidelined were invariably followed by men. For example, to Justice Todd Blanche, former personal lawyer of Donald Trump.

The latest example, Susie Wiles - the first woman to occupy the strategic position of chief of staff at the White House - has just been replaced by Stephen Miller, a hard-right, previously her deputy.

For Karrin Vasby Anderson, among “the women who generally gravitate around” the New York billionaire, she was “an exceptional figure”, “recruited for her expertise”.

But, after the overwhelming Democratic blue wave in the midterm elections, "maybe Trump thinks that Stephen Miller will defend him better than Susie Wiles would have; that he will be a better public figure for the Trump administration at a time when there are going to be parliamentary investigations and opposition to his agenda."

Another media face of Donald Trump's presidency, Karoline Leavitt, the youngest White House spokesperson, left the post at the end of August to devote more time to her two young children.

© 2026 AFP

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