Lazy Caturday Reads: Stephen Miller in Charge

Good Afternoon!!

Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff is dominating the news today. When I woke up this morning, it was almost the only story highlighted on Memeorandum.com. It certainly is a horrifying development, but I had assumed that Miller was already extremely influential in the White House. Perhaps Susie Wiles was more of a moderating force than I realized. In any case, Wiles is gone now and Miller has the top White House job. He also appears to be on friendly terms with First Lady Natalie Harp. He was seen hobnobbing with her as they made their way to Marine One on the way to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. Here’s the latest on Miller elevation.

Kevin Liptak, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, Priscilla Alvarez, and Adam Cancryn  at CNN: Stephen Miller replacing Susie Wiles as chief of staff as Trump grows furious with midterm results, sources say.

Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, is departing her role days after catastrophic Republican midterm losses in a seismic staff shakeup at the White House. She will be replaced by Stephen Miller, a longtime aide to President Donald Trump who orchestrated his hardline immigration agenda.

The move is the first major personnel shuffling after the midterms, and came after Trump voiced fury at the strategy that led to Republicans decisively losing majorities in the House and Senate, people familiar with the matter said. And the president signaled Friday it will not be the last, telling CBS News “I do” when asked if he intended to fire people.

“I love my Cabinet. I think they’re good. But I’ll be doing maybe a few changes. I don’t want to mention who,” Trump said.

Yet the decision to elevate Miller — one of the most powerful and controversial engineers of Trump’s second term — to the top staff position in the West Wing is a sign the president does not intend to fundamentally change his governing approach.

Trump said Wiles would move to his political operation, adding that she “has done an outstanding job.” And as he departed the White House for an event in Florida Friday, he praised Miller.

“Stephen’s been great, and sometimes in life, you gotta make moves,” Trump told reporters shortly after announcing the staffing shakeup.

“Stephen’s been with me from beginning. He gets it, very good politically, and he’s a very good man,” he added.

I guess so, if you like Nazis who look like Nosferatu. More from the CNN story:

Trump, who initially appeared unfazed by the results of the Tuesday night midterms, has become angrier as he’s watched coverage of the historic losses, according to the people familiar with his response. That sour mood has spread throughout the West Wing, which has become increasingly factionalized in recent days. Aides have described a workplace filled with tension and infighting, likening it to the “knives out” days of Trump’s first term, and Wiles’ departure will likely accelerate the shift in the balance of power in his inner circle….

As it became clear the president was unhappy with her, Wiles decided to resign, believing he should be able to tap someone to lead his White House that had his confidence, according to a person familiar with her thinking. Wiles had always said she’d remain at the White House until the end of Trump’s second term. But the person familiar noted that Wiles had a tough year personally, given her cancer diagnosis and treatment, saying: “It wasn’t worth her staying in a job Trump was making clear he didn’t want her in.” [….]

I guess we’ll have to see how much more influential Miller becomes in the new job. Wiles reportedly didn’t get deeply involved in political issues. Miller will obviously push for more cruel immigration policies.

Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Tyler Pager at The New York Times (gift link): In Elevating Stephen Miller, Trump Doubles Down on Hard-Line Agenda.

On Friday, the president ousted his onetime close adviser, Susie Wiles, from the role of White House chief of staff, replacing her with Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff. More than any other top adviser, Mr. Miller encouraged an aggressive flexing of executive power when Mr. Trump returned to office.

Mr. Miller has been the driver of the president’s most muscular actions, including the use of increasingly hostile tactics to capture immigrants across the country and the bombing of small boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean that he and Mr. Trump declared constituted a foreign invasion.

The president’s choice sent a clear signal about the posture he intends to strike in his final two years in office and how little he intends to alter his approach in response to the most decisive political rout in half a century. He also put on center stage a figure who had already been a galvanizing target for Democrats intent on using their new powers in Congress to check the administration.

In a social media post, Mr. Miller praised Mr. Trump as “the most transformative political leader” in U.S. history, saying that he had “single-handedly saved America from those who would destroy it.”

“The mission now is more clear than ever: Fight with all of our soul to support our president and defend this magnificent Republic,” he added.

People close to Mr. Miller said he had shown no interest in compromising with congressional Democrats and was ready for a fight over subpoenas and investigations that are expected to emanate from the Hill. His top priority, they said, is rebuilding the fractured MAGA coalition and pursuing policies that will energize the voters who elected Mr. Trump in 2024.

“Stephen is and always has been the eternal flame of the MAGA movement — putting the president’s words and policy into action,” Hunter Morgen, who worked as a deputy to Mr. Miller during the president’s first term and is now a lobbyist at Ballard Partners, wrote in a text message….

While Ms. Wiles made clear she did not consider her job to be protecting the country from the president, as some of his first-term senior aides did, Mr. Miller is far more willing than she ever was to push legal boundaries.

Adam Gabbatt at The Guardian: Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, pledges ‘total devotion’ to the president.

Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s most controversial aide and the architect of his sweeping immigration crackdown, has lavished praise on the president after his appointment as White House chief of staff.

In his first public remarks since the move was announced, Miller – who begins the role on Monday – pledged “total devotion” to Trump amid concern the administration is now poised to double down on its far-right, nativist immigration agenda.

“If it wasn’t for President Trump the United States of America would not exist right now,” Miller, standing alongside his boss, declared at an event on Friday evening. “This man saved America. He saved our military from collapse. He saved our economy from destruction. He saved our border from annihilation. He saved our country from threats at home and abroad which would have been the end of the American dream for ever.”

His appointment was unveiled after Americans punished Trump’s Republican party in this week’s US midterm elections, unleashing a blue wave that swept through parts of the country where Democrats have not won in decades.

As of Saturday morning, Republicans have lost seven seats in the Senate, and Democrats hold narrow leads in the two races – Alaska and Mississippi – that have yet to be called. Republicans have also lost 42 seats in the House of Representatives, and five governor races.

Despite this extraordinary array of losses nationwide – which senior Republicans including JD Vance have blamed on the Iran war and tariffs, key pillars of Trump’s agenda – Miller praised the president on Friday for having “saved the Republican party from the ash heap of history and has made it stronger, more popular and more resilient than ever before”.

Miller added: “It is the honor of my life to be President Trump’s chief of staff, and I swear to you, and I pledge to you, Mr President, my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment, and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.” [….]

Miller’s appointment has been met with dismay by Democrats and some Republicans, with Marlin Stutzman, the Republican congressman from Indiana, describing the move as a “horrible decision” in comments to Politico.

Don Bacon, the outgoing Republican congressman from Nebraska, predicted that Miller will “have an antagonistic relationship with many”, telling CNN: “He cost us seats in Texas and Arizona by alienating many Hispanic voters who voted for Trump in 2024.”

Jonathan Lemire, Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker, Sarah Fitzpatrick, and Vivian Salama at The Atlantic (gift link): A Chief of Staff Who ‘Will Crack Skulls’.

In the days before MAGA’s midterm disaster, President Trump began complaining about his presidency. He felt stuck. The war in Iran wouldn’t end. Inflation wouldn’t subside. Little was going his way. But in the president’s mind, there was one exception: “Stephen is the only one who gets stuff done,” Trump repeatedly griped, a person close to the White House told us. “I need more people who get stuff done.”

Stephen Miller, one of the president’s hardest-charging and longest-serving aides, had managed to maintain Trump’s trust, even though he is the architect of the administration’s sweeping mass-deportation campaign that many in the GOP blame, in part, for the Republicans’ historic wipeout this week. Today, Trump announced that Miller would replace Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, completing his decade-long journey from congressional staffer to the most powerful aide in Washington.

Where Wiles served as something of a guardrail—making sure Trump was fully briefed and that he understood the risks and pitfalls of any decision—Miller has played the role of an accelerant for a president who already has rash tendencies. One issue on which Wiles and Miller seem to diverge: how to force journalists to reveal their sources in the government. Trump has pushed the Department of Justice to pursue criminal-leak investigations on national-security grounds, and there have been discussions in the White House and at DOJ about various tactics they could use—including arrests—as part of those efforts, according to three people familiar with the matter. Two of those people said that Wiles had pushed back. Miller, though, was in favor and insisted that it wouldn’t take long for journalists to give up their sources, they told us. A DOJ spokesperson told us via text that “this is absolutely false” but declined to elaborate. A White House spokesperson told us in a statement that unauthorized leaks will “NEVER be tolerated” and those responsible “must be held accountable.”

One person familiar with Trump’s decision to elevate Miller told us that the president wants somebody who “will crack skulls,” adding that Trump “doesn’t want to be reined in.” Another described Miller as someone with significant Capitol Hill experience who could manage the coming clashes with Democrats. White House officials have held high-level conversations in recent days, including with Miller, about areas where they can work with Democrats. But another person familiar with Trump’s thinking said there was no need for a chief of staff who could work the Hill to pass legislation, because nothing was going to get done. “The next two years are going to be nonstop political warfare,” this person told us—and Miller can be the face of that fight.

This is a very interesting article. I hope you’ll use the gift link to read the whole thing. Here’s just a bit more on Miller:

Miller has been with Trump from the beginning. He was an aide to Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who became the first senator to endorse Trump’s 2016 campaign. Before long, Miller was designing policy proposals—particularly those that reflected his hard-line immigration views—and sometimes appearing as a fiery warm-up act at Trump’s rallies. He co-authored the first term’s so-called Muslim ban, became known for his high-volume and belligerent TV interviews defending Trump, and was one of the few staffers to navigate the often-competing power centers in the dysfunctional West Wing. (In both terms, he has remained well liked by colleagues, who appreciate his straightforwardness and dry sense of humor.) Miller oversaw the writing of the speech that Trump delivered from the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, ahead of the Capitol insurrection, and his influence only grew during Trump’s four years out of power. Miller used that time to help write Project 2025, a playbook for Trump’s return to the White House that included a broad expansion of executive power.

At the core of Miller’s agenda was a sweeping deportation program. Masked ICE agents detained people in quiet neighborhoods and Home Depot parking lots, while Miller demanded that dramatic deportation quotas be met. Americans, polling showed, began to view the tactics as extreme, particularly after the killing of two Americans in Minneapolis early this year. Trump’s political team has privately blamed Miller’s aggressive immigration policy in part for the defeat on Tuesday, because violent ICE clashes and ethnic profiling on the streets have alienated both Latino voters and moderate independents.

Miller has already been operating as a de facto chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security and the president’s mass-deportation campaign. He hosts conference calls six days a week with top officials from agencies across the government who are enlisted to help ICE with the crackdown. Officials who participate in the calls say that Miller often berates staff who disappoint him or lack the information he wants. The White House press office promised in a statement tonight that Miller “will continue to deliver historic successes for the American people.”

And there’s this:

Recently, Trump had begun telling people close to him that he was considering changing his immigration emphasis, recognizing that although voters supported his tough border-security stance, ICE’s brutal approach to rounding up undocumented immigrants, including those who are not criminals, was provoking a backlash. Trump had begun to hear from business owners about their employees being deported, along with the nannies and tutors of friends, and he was open to pivoting. Miller, as his chief of staff, will now directly oversee the policy debate, a shift from his role as the resident immigration hawk in the White House.

Immigration policy definitely won’t get kinder and gentler with Miller in charge.

Lauren Kaori Gurley at The Washington Post (gift link): Stephen Miller’s promotion angers industries reeling from immigration enforcement.

Industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor decried President Donald Trump’s promotion of his chief architect of deportations on Friday, just days after millions of Americans signaled anger about such policies.

The elevation of Stephen Miller to chief of staff, starting Monday, left some leaders of groups representing the agriculture and construction sectors gobsmacked.

“When I got a text message, ‘Hey, have you heard about Stephen Miller?,’ my first thought was: Thank goodness he was let go,” said Chris Herr, president of PennAg Industries Association, which represents farmers and pork and poultry producers. Many of his members helped propel Trump to victory in 2024 but have soured on the president, as some farmers reel from the loss of workers to immigration enforcement, he said.

“The wild card now is what is the president going to do?” Herr said. “Is he going to be engaged, or is the Stephen Miller policy going to rule the day?”

Last month, more than 40 farmers and agricultural industry groups wrote to Trump and congressional leaders, warning that the immigration crackdown was hitting the nation’s food supply, hurting farmers and risking higher grocery prices. The letter marked a strategy shift for an industry that had been reluctant to publicly criticize the immigration raids, preferring to lobby the administration behind the scenes. About 66 percent of the country’s farmworkers are foreign-born.

“Time will tell if Stephen Miller continues to wreck the economy, destroy families, tarnish the Republican political coalition and obliterate Trump’s legacy,” said Rebecca Shi, chief executive of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a bipartisan group that lobbies for immigration reform on Capitol Hill, which organized the letter.

For months, immigration raids have targeted construction sites across South Texas, resulting in significant project delays and labor shortages that helped deliver Democrats historic victories up and down the ballot in the Lone Star State this week.

There’s quite a bit more commentary on the Miller appointment from business people at the link, and none of it is positive.

And check this out from Fox News’s Elizabeth Elkind: House GOP erupts at Stephen Miller as Trump elevates him after midterm massacre: ‘Megalomaniac’.

Several Republican lawmakers are fuming over President Donald Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff.

“Horrible decision,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital on Friday after Trump announced his decision.

A Republican lawmaker who was granted anonymity to speak candidly said they were in “utter disbelief.”

Tensions were rising against Miller in the wake of Republicans’ terrible performance in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Multiple House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital just moments before his promotion said Miller, who spearheads Trump’s immigration policy, should be fired.

When later asked about his promotion, one House Republican who said Miller should be fired replied simply with a facepalm emoji….

The second GOP lawmaker told Fox News Digital that Miller ignored multiple warnings from House Republicans in the past, arguing that Trump’s immigration crackdown is what voters asked for.

“I’ve been in several group meetings where a lot of us have told him, ‘Your immigration enforcement policies are backfiring back home, our people are mad, our businesses are mad — even in deep red districts — and it is impacting not just the voters, but the donors, and everybody top to bottom,” that GOP lawmaker said. “But it looked to me like Stephen Miller was only after numbers … he would not listen to us.”

Other Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital also criticized Miller but did not go as far as to say he should be fired.

“I think he’s greatly hurt the administration and cost us many seats on Tuesday,” retiring Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital before news of Miller’s promotion broke. “He took an immigration policy that favored the president 2:1 in the public, over-reached and made it 2:1 unfavorable.”

“Many Republicans don’t like him,” Bacon added when asked about his promotion.

One more story on Miller’s elevation from Dasha Burns and Will Steakin at Politico: How Katie Miller lobbied for her husband’s promotion.

President Donald Trump’s decision to make Stephen Miller the White House chief of staff followed a weeks-long lobbying effort from Katie Miller, his wife.

Katie Miller told people to call the president on her husband’s behalf if they believed that he was better than other potential successors to Susie Wiles, according to two people with direct knowledge of her role, who, like others in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some of the names Trump discussed privately over the last month were Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Randy Levine, the president of the New York Yankees. Lee Zeldin and Sergio Gor were also floated, according to two people close to the White House.

One White House adviser, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive matters, said the prospect of Pulte in charge had alarmed many inside the administration…