Trump’s oddly placid first response to the midterms—a repudiation of Republicans and his agenda up and down the ballot, across the country—was promptly offset by his elevation three days later to White House Chief of Staff of loyalist Stephen Miller, the embodiment of everything terrible that he stands for.
Miller has been with Trump since the earliest days of his campaign, his first term, and then through the in-between Biden years to become one of the architects of Trump’s comeback—but also of the agenda that the American people, coast to coast and from every demographic and racial group, just rebuked with a force we haven’t seen for fifty years. In particular, he’s the man driving the daily quotas that filled hastily constructed deportation centers and led to the horrors that turned voters against Trump on the signature issue that got him elected in 2016 and 2024.
In Miller, Trump has a new Roy Cohn, a ruthless operative there solely to serve his leader’s wishes and whims. This, of course, is exactly what Trump wants—someone to whisper sweet nothings and the occasional piece of white supremacist rhetoric. Miller’s work will be to push the boundaries of executive power, yes, but also to coddle his boss; to remind him he has not lost one iota of power despite an election stacked against him, assure him that he should not back down on his signature MAGA issues, and keep him focused on the ballroom and the arch and the golf course and the gold trim.
These legacy projects are fun for Trump; they relax him.
Everything else that comes to the White House will be in Miller’s hands.
The 41-year-old Miller is Trump’s consigliere much like Cohn, the legendary fixer was to his much younger self.
It’s quite a plum gig for an ideologue near-universally disliked on both sides of the aisle. At Mar-a-Lago with Trump’s rich guests looking on and applauding, Miller just hours after his promotion declared, “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.”
Sorry, Stephen, but someone should tell you there’s only one oath a government employee should swear, and that’s to the Constitution.
Trump’s former chief of staff, Susie Wiles, saw her job as mainly getting the trains (and the occasional Qatari-gifted jet) to run on time. She may have checked some of Trump’s wilder impulses, but for the most part she didn’t impose her views. Miller was her deputy and so, perhaps, a natural heir, but they couldn’t be more different. Wiles stayed in the background, shunning publicity. Look for Miller to shine his light wherever it will advance his cause.
Miller is an apparatchik, skilled at thrusting and parrying and landing the lowest of low blows, and that’s the point. He’s not at Trump’s side to advance legislation, but rather to stymie it; he’s already ridiculing incoming Democrats as “extremists, freaks and America-hating lunatics.”
Trump told “60 Minutes” his immigration policy might have been “too tough,” and that he’d like to make a deal with Democrats. Both sides could dust off a bipartisan immigration reform bill negotiated two years ago by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford. A few tweaks and it would be good to go… but tapping Miller as his Chief of staff makes that unlikely. (As the late Lindsey Graham put it, “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating on immigration, we are going nowhere.”)
Miller was one of only a few top aides who stayed with Trump after he left office the first time, refusing to accept his defeat and plotting ahead even as Trump’s political future then seemed uncertain.
Of course, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, has already warned Trump insiders to “lawyer up.” Miller will be among those receiving subpoenas, and his inclination—indeed, a Trumpian inclination through and through—will surely be to fight everything and drag things out in the courts, which will make for a rocky two years. And with the “Trump crime family” on the list of likely probes, Trump might not be in the mood to work with Democrats on bipartisan legislation for much longer.
For some people in politics, the fight is what you do to achieve a goal. For others, like Miller, the fight is never over, and if it is, you just move the goalposts.
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