No day in the White House is like the last, Meghan Bauer told IW Features. And no day in her life as a mom of two toddler boys is the same either.
At home and in the White House, Bauer’s mission is the same: she is fighting for America’s next generation. Whether it’s raising her 4- and 2-year-old sons or leading the Office of Cabinet Affairs, where she oversees President Donald Trump’s 24-member cabinet, she’s dedicated to the future of her country.
“My job is to ensure all the Cabinet agencies are coordinated and driving the President’s agenda every day,” she explained.
Recently, she joined the launch of the White House’s new digital interface, America.gov, where Americans can get fast answers from across 29,000 government websites. And as the key contact between the president and his cabinet—and as a mom—she’s mastered the art of multitasking.
“My day starts pretty early with two young kids,” she said. “The first thing I look at is a read-ahead of… everything in the cabinet… Our first meeting in the day is with [Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles, and that’s our senior staff meeting.”
From there, she’s meeting with cabinet secretaries or traveling to government agencies. She’s on hand to help the cabinet and President Trump, and she’s overseeing the cabinet’s meetings with the president, their media interviews, and their travel around America.
Speaking with IW Features, she tugged a U.S. map featuring the cabinet secretaries’ travel for the week free from beneath a stack of pages.
Statesmanship and politics are in Bauer’s blood. Originally from New Hampshire, Bauer moved to the D.C. area when she was 10 years old, and her mother joined the George W. Bush Administration. After college, she worked at the Jack Kemp Foundation and got her master’s in finance from Georgetown University, telling IW Features that she planned to “get far away from politics” and carve herself a new career path.
But the 2016 election overturned decades of political status quo, and Bauer’s plans with it.
“Donald J. Trump decided to run. I remember watching on the news him going down that golden escalator,” Bauer said.
Within a few months, Bauer’s bags were packed for New York City to work on Trump’s historic 2016 campaign.
“We were on the fifth floor of Trump Tower, where it was the old set of The Apprentice,” she recalled. “You would have no idea that we were running a presidential campaign from there.”
Trump’s 2016 victory set America on a course few could have predicted. It also set Bauer’s life on a new course. She met her husband on the campaign, and though she said she was a tomboy as a kid, she said that, deep down, she always wanted to be a mom—a dream that came true during her political hiatus between Trump administrations.
In the first Trump administration, she worked in scheduling roles and Senior Policy Advisor at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In 2020, she thought she was leaving the world of politics for good. She didn’t miss a beat, returned to her original career trajectory, and worked in real estate finance.
Then, on New Year’s Day in 2025, she got a call from Susie Wiles, Trump’s campaign manager, who had been tapped for the new administration’s chief of staff. Wiles asked Bauer to come back to the White House.
“At the time I had a 3-year-old, and I think [my other son] was six months,” Bauer said, and explained that her husband was also starting a new job that month. “I had no idea how I was going to be able to handle that.”
“But we just did it,” she said.
“A good friend gave us a plaque. It’s actually what [former President Ronald] Reagan had on his desk,” she added. “They gave it to us being like, ‘Hey, this is scary what you guys are about to do, but you can do it and it can be done.’”
Returning to the White House was the “best thing” she ever did, Bauer said. She sees her role now as critical in the fight to preserve a better America for her children, and their children’s children.
But just because Bauer makes working night and day for the American people look easy doesn’t mean she doesn’t struggle with the same work-life balance many working moms navigate. She admitted that there’s “no secret” to doing it all and recalled a friend’s advice from early in her motherhood journey: “Every morning, pray to expand the hours of your day, and somehow, God will guide you.”
“Even if I only have five minutes with my kids, those are the five best minutes of my day,” she said. “There are days like Tuesday. I didn’t see my kids, and that’s okay because, you know what? Today, I’m going to get out at a decent hour, and I’m going to be able to have dinner with them and create intentional time around it.”
“I did school pickup earlier in the week, and there were some moms in gym clothes. There were some moms in suits, and at the end of the day, we’re all doing the same thing. We’re picking up our kids, and we’re hoping to raise our kids, in my case boys, to be strong men and faithful American patriots,” she shared.
As Bauer navigates the demands of her job and motherhood, she credited her own parents’ example in her life.
“My mom was a trailblazer. She was a working mom,” she said. “I credit a lot of what I’m able to do because I saw my mom do it. But I also saw my dad be the most loving and supportive father in the world, and I was able to find a man that is loving and supportive of me too and the best father.”
Sharing that family dream—and making it possible for every American—is what Bauer sees, day-in and day-out, as the Trump Administration lives out its reputation as “the most pro-family administration.” Whether it’s renewing and expanding the Child Tax Credit or offering new opportunities to families through Trump Accounts, which all American children are now eligible for, Bauer is proud to be the embodiment of the future she wants for America.
Even the White House hallways are a testament to the values that she hopes this administration leads with, she said. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s kids, and, until recently, former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s children, are staples of the White House, Bauer said. Bauer has brought her own sons into work to show them her office, and her young son even sat in on an impromptu meeting with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
“They love to come visit here, and they’re welcomed with big, open arms, and they think this place is a playground,” she said. “They’ll run down the hallways, they’ll go down to the Navy Mess and get ice cream, and then there’s always cookies around and then the presidential M&Ms.”
Another key part of Bauer’s family-first life is her Catholic faith.
“Churches should be filled with loud kids,” she said. “Some days my kids are in Spider-Man pajamas… But most days they’re dressed nicely, and yes, they’re loud. Yes, we leave five times to go to the water fountain. Yes, we may spill goldfish all over on the floor. But my kids are going to learn that God is the center of their world.”
With the establishment of the White House Faith Office, Bauer shared the impact of working among equally faithful Americans—through both the administration’s wins and the tragedies that have struck in the last two years.
“The day Charlie Kirk was murdered, Susie [Wiles] called a meeting of senior staff into her office,” Bauer said. “We were honestly scared and heartbroken. And at the end of that meeting, [Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy] Heidi Overton, who’s a great friend here—another strong, powerful woman of faith—she led us all in prayer… We just had to pray for our country, pray for our friend Erika, and that would be a moment I’ll just forever remember.”
Only months later, when Susie Wiles was diagnosed with cancer, Bauer said the women of the White House came together and prayed the rosary for Wiles.
“It’s such a privilege to work for the first female chief of staff ever,” Bauer said. “She inspired me to get up every day and do my best. And actually, as hard as some days can be, I knew she was fighting a bigger battle than all of us, and she still showed up every day. Not only for the president and the American people—she showed up for all of us.”
Bauer has been a true champion woman herself, living out her own faith and values—for her family, for American families, and the next 250 years of this nation.
“I always like to tell women, ‘Fall in love, get married, and have kids, and don’t let anyone tell you [that] you can’t have a career and do that,’” she shared.
And for Bauer, everything she does is ultimately for her children.
“‘Am I making my boys proud?’” she said she constantly asks herself. “Will they look back and be like, ‘Yeah, my mom helped with that.’”
“Both of my boys, when we were designing their backpacks for this year, I said, ‘Well, what do you want to put on them?’ And they said, ‘America,’” Bauer said. “Nothing makes me more proud than their love—their deep, deep love—of our country.”
