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Wiles Accepts ALEC's Iron Lady Award by Video: 'The Real Work Gets Done in the States,' Aug. 3, 2026

August 3, 2026 · American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) · 0:06:03

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What happened

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles accepted the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Iron Lady Award in a video address to the organization’s 2026 annual meeting, published by ALEC on August 3, 2026. “I wish I could be with you tonight in person,” she said. “My White House team and I are working hard to help President Trump continue to implement the most ambitious agenda this country has seen in a generation.” She thanked ALEC president Lisa Nelson and her team, crediting the organization with more than 50 years of standing for “limited government, free markets, and individual liberty,” and for the proposition that “the states lead the way in preserving them.”

Speaking in America’s 250th year, Wiles attributed the administration’s results jointly to Washington and the states, listing, as she stated them: historic tax cuts letting families and small businesses keep more of what they earn; an American manufacturing and energy renaissance, with investment built in America instead of overseas; education reforms that put parents and students back in charge; and “a serious and sustained fight against the waste, fraud, and abuse that has drained trust in government.” None of it, she said, happens without the states. Accepting an award named for Margaret Thatcher, she quoted her — “if you just set out to be liked, you’ll be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and will have achieved nothing” — and applied it to what she described as socialism rearing its head in places like New York and Colorado: “We don’t manage its failures gently. We defeat its ideas plainly and without apology.” She noted the President’s nomination of Florida House Speaker Danny Perez as ambassador to Brazil as the latest example of the administration recruiting its people from the states, and she closed with an open door: “Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or our White House team… We need your partnership and counsel every step of the way.”

Why it matters

This is the chief of staff’s most formal policy address on record, and its argument is federalism as strategy: the White House publicly telling state legislators that they — not Washington — are where “the real work gets done,” and asking for their input as a standing channel. It is also her fullest statement of the administration’s results ledger in the 250th year, delivered to the state-level audience the midterm fight will run through.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the results ledger as Wiles stated it on August 3, 2026 — historic tax cuts, a manufacturing and energy investment renaissance, parent-first education reforms, and a sustained waste-fraud-and-abuse fight, credited jointly to the administration and the states. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), “Susie Wiles, Pres. Trump’s Chief of Staff, received the Iron Lady Award at ALEC’s 2026 Annual Meeting” (Aug. 3, 2026, embedded above; address as delivered by video to the annual meeting).