White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ reaction to President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza has gone viral.
Wiles, the first female White House chief of staff, was widely credited, alongside adviser Chris LaCivita, for keeping Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign on track.
She was less astute Tuesday at keeping her facial reaction in check.
Photographers in the Oval Office caught Wiles making a wide-eyed expression as Trump spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his plans for Gaza.
Trump first made the pitch for the U.S. to take over Gaza at an executive order signing in the Oval – and later made waves by talking about it at-length in the first bilateral press conference of his administration alongside the Israeli leader.
During the Oval Office meeting, Trump expanded on his desire to have Palestinians relocated out of the Gaza Strip, and this time said he thought it would be a permanent relocation.
‘It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return. Why would they want to return? The place has been hell,’ he told reporters.
‘You take certain areas and you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying. The same thing is going to happen again. It’s happened over and over again,’ he added.
‘I hope that we can do something where they wouldn’t want to go back, who wouldn’t want to go back, they experienced nothing but death and destruction.’
A spokesperson for the White House didn’t respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment on why Wiles was making the expression.
During the bilateral press conference with Netanyahu, Trump dove further into his plans, seemingly even taking Netanyahu off guard.
‘The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,’ he said at a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site … level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.’
Trump, a property developer who sees the world in terms of deals, has long talked up Gaza’s coastal location and pleasant climate as a perfect holiday vacation.
In his vision, U.S. reconstruction would create thousands of jobs and spare Palestinians the pain and expense of rebuilding once again.
When a reporter asked if that might involve military force, Trump answered: ‘If it’s necessary.’
Netanyahu praised Trump for the bold declaration making ‘jaws drop.’
‘You see things others refuse to see,’ he said. ‘You say things others refuse to say.
‘And after the jaws drop people scratch their heads and they say, you know, he’s right.’
Earlier Trump told reporters at an executive order signing, ‘The Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked.’
‘And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people,’ the president continued. ‘I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.’
He pressed that Palestinians wouldn’t want to stay in their homeland.
‘I don’t know how they could want to stay. It’s a demolition site,’ Trump said. ‘It’s a pure demolition site.’
Trump suggested finding one or several pieces of land ‘and build them some really nice places with plenty of money in the area.’
‘I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza,’ he said.