Susie Wiles: Trump’s Chief of Staff Works for Lobbying Firm Representing Junk Food, Pharmaceutical and Tobacco Industries
November 8th, 2024Fox:
In addition to her work on political campaigns, Wiles is a registered lobbyist.
Federal disclosures filed in April show Wiles was a lobbyist for the tobacco company Swisher International while running the Trump campaign. The documents show she worked to influence Congress on “FDA regulations.”
Wiles is the co-chair for the Florida and Washington, D.C., offices of Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm whose clients include AirBnB, AT&T, eBay, Pfizer, Tesla, and the Embassy of Qatar, although she is not a registered lobbyist for any of those clients.
Via: Sludge:
Trump has worked to cultivate a populist image, in the past running on a pledge to “drain the swamp” and promising to end the revolving door and tax Wall Street. Before he left office in 2021, he reversed his own executive order that would have barred his appointees from any lobbying related to their agencies for five years.
One of the Trump campaign’s consistent messages to voters was that a Trump administration would “Make America Healthy Again,” with campaign figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledging to get ultra-processed foods removed from school lunches. Mercury has large lobbying contracts with several junk food companies that will be working to oppose that objective. It lobbies for sugar cereal company Kellogg’s, high fructose corn syrup sauce maker Kraft-Heinz, and Nestlé SA, the Swiss company whose brands include KitKat, Hot Pockets, and Nestea.
