Trump and Wiles are like a new Madden and Summerall

Like President Trump or not, his second term is going much better for him than his first was. This time eight years ago, his presidency was in disarray, reeling from the Russiagate probe and the Senate’s rejection of ObamaCare repeal.

That’s night and day from the current administration’s early victories from the tax-and-spending megabill, immigration and universal injunctions.

Even European leaders and Ivy League universities are now heeding Trump’s demands. The president’s approval ratings are 5 percentage points higher now than at the same time in his first term, according to the RealClearPolitics aggregate poll.  

Pundits have credited White House chief of staff Susie Wiles for the new administration’s winning streak. But less has been written on how Wiles, who ran Trump’s successful 2024 election campaign, has prevailed where others have failed in instilling discipline in the notoriously free-wheeling Trump operation.  

A clue to understanding why the president and his chief of staff have synched so far comes from an unexpected place — the legendary NFL broadcasting duo of John Madden and Pat Summerall, who is also Wiles’s late father.

The on-air magic of Madden and Summerall played a pivotal role in the modern NFL’s dominance over virtually everything else on television. It also helps explain how Wiles has succeeded in supporting another famously unscripted communicator.

Like Trump and Wiles, Madden and Summerall made an unlikely team. Summerall was reserved and courtly, with a pitch perfect voice he honed over years of calling professional golf, tennis, basketball and football games. Madden, who died in 2021, was high-energy, loquacious, and prone to hilarious stream-of-consciousness commentaries.

Sound familiar?  

They were paired together for the first time by happenstance when Summerall’s normal broadcasting partner was unavailable. Madden was in his rookie year as an announcer and still perfecting the mechanics of calling games. A particular struggle for him was to avoid continuing his color commentary through commercial breaks. While Summerall was already at the top of the sports broadcasting world, Madden wasn’t even sure the network would bring him back for another game.

But just like when Wiles met Trump for the first time in 2016, Summerall focused on Madden’s strengths, not his rough edges. He immediately noticed Madden’s intense preparation. Wiles was similarly taken by Trump’s “smarts” and “unparalleled work ethic.” She recognized that Trump delivered an alternative to the “traditional Republican” way of approaching voters, which had outlived its effectiveness. He spoke in a way that ordinary people could understand, and not in the “prescribed protocols” of how a politician is supposed to speak.  

Madden likewise was never one to put on airs. As the head coach of the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s, he had only three rules: be on time, pay attention and play like hell on Sunday. The players rewarded the trust Madden put in them. He retired with a Super Bowl ring and the highest winning percentage of anyone who had coached at least 100 games in the NFL.

As an announcer, Madden’s greatest gift was that he never talked down to his audience. He was the opposite of the vastly overrated Howard Cosell, who defined sports broadcasting in the 1970s. While Cosell deplored “insipid drivel about the 4-3 defense,” Madden reveled in breaking down the gritty mechanics of football and glorified the players in the trenches.

“When you got steam coming out of your head and your mouth,” he said in one vintage riff about Dallas Cowboy defensive lineman Nate Newton, “now you’re talking football.” Viewers loved it. Madden and Summerall turned NFL football into must-see TV.  

The reason they worked so well together is that Summerall respected Madden’s unique gifts and showed up prepared to provide the succinct play-by-play narration that frequently punctuated his counterpart’s free-flowing riffs. As Wiles noted in an interview with the New York Post’s Miranda Devine, her father had to work intensely to make announcing seem effortless, compared to today, when “anything you want to know about any athlete” is readily available online.

Wiles seems to have taken a page from her father in approaching her role. Wiles picked up early on that Trump, like Madden, is a natural communicator. Say what you will about the president’s policies, he has a real bond with his base, many of whom are not traditional Republicans.

Similar to her dad’s broadcasting partner, Trump forged the bond because he speaks directly, even if unconventionally when compared with past presidents. For her part, Wiles isn’t trying to play the traditional role of gatekeeper. She sees her job as giving her boss “more inputs, not less, more information, not less” and then reining in the process so the president can make a decision that the administration can execute.  

So far, it’s working. “The president is having fun,” Wiles recently remarked. And his agenda is getting done.  

Michael Toth is a practicing lawyer and a research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.