Susie Wiles, the woman known as Donald Trump’s “ice queen,” lived up to her reputation with the glare she shot at her boss on Tuesday. He was in the middle of a press conference in the Oval Office with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu when the conversation on Gaza took a wild turn.

So wild, in fact, that Wiles couldn’t contain her facial expressions. She went viral on Tuesday with a pained expression she wore as Trump rambled on, suggesting Palestinians shouldn’t even want to return to their homes in Gaza, and floating a plan for some wealthy nation to build another home for them elsewhere.

Wiles, the first-ever female chief of staff in the White House, presumably knows that forced displacement — the act of moving people from their home through coercion — is a war crime under the Rome Statute additions to the Geneva Conventions. Trump, maybe not so much.

“Iran was in very big trouble when I left,” Trump said, seeming to blame the latest deadly war on Joe Biden. “They didn’t have money for Hamas, they didn’t have money for Hezbollah. You had no problem. October 7th could never have happened.”

The Daily Beast reported:

Unlike Wiles, Netanyahu smiled and smirked as Trump said he thought the 1.8 million Gazans who had been displaced during the fighting shouldn’t bother to return home.

“Why would they want to return? The place has been hell,” he said.

“Because it’s their home, sir!” a reporter called out. “Why would they leave?”

“It’s been one of the meanest, toughest places on Earth,” Trump continued. “And right now, I’ve seen every picture from every angle—better than if I were there—and nobody can live there. You can’t live there.”

Wiles’s eyes got bigger and bigger as she moved ever closer to Trump, eventually standing directly behind him, as if to silence him with her glare. It did not work.

Trump, of course, went on to suggest that the United States should take over Gaza, something he and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have been hoping for, and making plans for, since early last year. The fact that Trump said it could be something akin to the “Riviera of the Middle East” seems to undercut his assertion that the area is unlivable.

Playing directly into the wishes of the Israeli PM, Trump painted the scenario as something that’s inevitably going to lead to destruction for Palestinians, rather than suggesting that any peace deal could ever be reached.

“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.”

That assumes — and justifies in advance — Israeli attacks on Gaza until all the Palestinians are gone.

It wasn’t even just Wiles that Trump surprised with his comments. Even Netanyahu seemed astounded as Trump described the process of taking over Gaza completely and permanently from Palestine. It would, of course, be a dream for the Israeli PM, who would like nothing more than to let America do his dirty work for him.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said, to Netanyahu’s delight. “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.”

And then Trump said the magic words. When asked if he planned to do all this through military means, Trump responded “If it’s necessary.”

Militarily-forced removal of Palestinians would definitely be considered “coercion,” so Trump is necessarily talking about voluntarily committing a war crime.

Bibi loved what he was hearing. “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.”

I doubt very seriously that anyone but hardcore Republicans would think Trump is right on that. Well, maybe the Democrats’ new version of Joe Manchin, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. He seemed supportive of Trump’s plan, even if it involves a US occupation of Gaza.

For the rest of us, we’ll all be wearing looks on our faces like Susie Wiles:

Lmao, look at Susie Wiles’ face when Trump says Palestinians shouldn’t go back to Gaza.

Just like every other CoS before her, she has zero control over this buffoon. pic.twitter.com/GSPpwzBjVo

— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) February 4, 2025

She wasn’t ready for anything Trump said yesterday. And neither was anyone else, other than Benjamin Netanyahu.