In the initial days after the staggering rebuke Republicans suffered in Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Trump appeared subdued — almost conciliatory.
He said he would work with Democrats, claiming as he has over the years that he could forge a deal with them on immigration, perhaps the most polarizing domestic issue of his second term.
But near the week’s end, instead of ceding to the clear evidence of voter displeasure, Mr. Trump pivoted to a familiar move: more MAGA.
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.
He knows how the levers of government function. He is one of two top West Wing staff members who were part of the first administration when the House majority flipped in 2018, prompting a blitz of subpoenas from Congress.
Mr. Miller spent the years between Mr. Trump’s two terms recruiting a team that would help him put in place a sweeping agenda once back in power. Today, he has allies among the lawyers in key agencies across the executive branch, as well as a running dialogue with Attorney General Todd Blanche and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Mr. Hegseth celebrated Mr. Miller’s promotion with several posts on social media. “Huge CONGRATS,” he wrote, calling Mr. Miller “a true patriot and America First fighter.” He followed that with a post that declared: “Patriots in control,” and a subsequent one that included a picture of himself and Mr. Miller.
Still, Mr. Miller’s allies have indicated that he understands the Iran war has been a political disaster, and believes the president needs to get back to policies that are popular with the MAGA base.
While Ms. Wiles may be staying in Mr. Trump’s orbit by moving to the president’s outside political operation in a still undefined role, her departure and the ascent of Mr. Miller will fundamentally shift the circle of advisers around the president as the White House absorbs the shock of the midterm elections.
“I wanted to make a change,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for a trip to Florida. Ms. Wiles did a “great job,” he said, but added: “Sometimes in life, you have to make moves.”
Asked what he wanted Mr. Miller to do differently than Ms. Wiles, who he had previously claimed wasn’t going anywhere, the president said, “Just run things well.”
Mr. Trump, in his private conversations as well as his public remarks, has not accepted blame for the election results.
Instead, he repeatedly blasted Ms. Wiles and his other political advisers, insisting he was poorly served in the lead-up to the midterms. He criticized Ms. Wiles in front of several people at an East Room election watch party Tuesday night, according to people with knowledge of the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
Mr. Trump has also been privately critical of James Blair, Ms. Wiles’s ally, who ran the president’s outside political operation, people with knowledge of the comments said.
Mr. Trump publicly expressed his confidence in Ms. Wiles in recent months. But behind the scenes, there were signs that her standing with the president was shaky, according to officials with knowledge of the dynamics.
He has berated Ms. Wiles in front of other staff members about his frustrations that his administration has not moved faster to find people he brands as “leakers,” as well as the stalled prosecutions of his perceived political enemies, they said. In front of several advisers, he would accuse her of being among the leakers.
Mr. Trump began cutting Ms. Wiles out of hiring decisions, including when he chose an inexperienced television pundit to replace the departing press secretary, Karoline Leavitt.
Allies of Ms. Wiles described her as prepared to leave her role, and uninterested in fighting to stay in it. Her supporters saw the criticism of her as an effort to assign blame for a political and policy strategy largely driven by Mr. Trump himself. And they faulted her detractors inside and outside the administration for spreading information meant to undercut her with Mr. Trump, including stories about her daughter’s lobbying work.
In her own statement posted on social media, Ms. Wiles described working for Mr. Trump in the White House as the “honor of a lifetime.”
“While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will,” she added.
Ms. Wiles, the first woman to hold the top staff job in the West Wing, helped steer Mr. Trump to his election victory in 2024, playing a central role in his return to power four years after his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2026. Ms. Wiles stayed in her role as she started treatment and recently announced that she was cancer free.
Ms. Wiles came into the job having established a rapport with Mr. Trump and a level of trust that none of his four first-term chiefs of staff had enjoyed.
She tried to influence his decisions on core issues including his immigration crackdown, even if only on the margins, according to people with knowledge of her role. She pushed for the appointments of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and both have been seen by many outside the government as stabilizing figures.
But Mr. Trump has relied primarily on his own instincts this term, and few advisers have engaged him in the kind of direct confrontations over policy that characterized his first administration.
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