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President Donald Trump’s decision to promote longtime aide Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff underscores how he is preparing to stand firm on his Make America Great Again agenda in the last two years of his second administration.
Democrats won historic majorities in the House and Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Part of the shift was because Latino and male voters, who backed Trump’s 2024 comeback bid, shifted to the Democrats.
Trump’s selection emphasizes that he has “clearly learned nothing from the midterms,” according to former first-term White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews.
“Doubling down on the architect of his administration’s cruel and inhumane mass deportation agenda is hardly the answer,” Matthews told the Washington Examiner. “Despite his claims that he’s willing to work with Democrats, this signals we can expect more of the same rather than any meaningful moderation or bipartisan governing.”
Miller has been at the forefront of helping the president define what an “America First” policy agenda looks like. He’s also championed immigration restriction and is reported to be the force behind Trump’s deportation crackdown.
Miller’s appeal to the MAGA base was on display Friday as Trumpworld insiders heralded the appointment.
“It means they brought in a wartime consigliere,” one source close to the White House told the Washington Examiner. “Frankly, there was probably no better choice in terms of rebuilding our fractured coalition.”
Trump political operative Alexander Bruesewitz also pointed to midterm election exit polls that show the president’s immigration policies “were actually the most popular.”
“Americans want strong borders and safe communities,” Bruesewitz told the Washington Examiner.
More broadly, a former White House official told the Washington Examiner Miller’s promotion demonstrates that Trump “is committed to the America First agenda, not simply immigration enforcement.”
“As deputy chief, Stephen’s portfolio was always so much bigger than immigration — he knows how to effectively pull the levers of government to actually deliver what the American people want,” that person said.
Trump’s decision on Friday ends days of speculation about Wiles’s future. Rumors of her impending departure swirled in Washington for months alongside stories that Wiles was no longer Trump’s closest confidant. The latter included stories reporting that Wiles was not informed of Trump’s surprise appointment of short-lived White House press secretary Katie Zacharia and War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s unexpected move to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, which has since been canceled.
Regardless, Trump remained adamant, at least publicly, that he would not be making personnel changes after the midterm elections.
“Zero chance,” he told reporters last month about Wiles after the Zacharia controversy. “Susie is here, and she’s going to be here for a long time.”
But on Friday afternoon, Trump took to Truth Social to announce that Wiles, his former campaign co-chairwoman who this year successfully fought breast cancer, would be leaving and that Miller would be starting as chief of staff on Monday.
Moments later, Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn that, “sometimes in life, you have to make moves.”
“He’s been with me from the beginning,” the president said of Miller. “He gets it very good politically.”
Miller accompanied Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday for a weekend in Florida.
A White House official told the Washington Examiner that Wiles tendered her resignation on Thursday night. Wiles, who was criticized this week over reports that her son-in-law was trying to use his proximity to the administration to enrich himself, will continue working at Trump’s political operation.
In the days since the midterm elections, Trump has indicated that he will persevere with his priorities, despite many of them not proving popular with voters — namely his beautification projects around the White House and Washington, D.C.
“It’s been a tremendous two years,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president that’s done more.”
White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s “commitment to restoring our Nation’s treasured landmarks should be celebrated and does not distract from his work to lower costs, strengthen our economy, and improve the lives of American families.”
“While making our Nation’s capital safe and beautiful again as he promised to do, President Trump remains focused on lowering costs, driving down inflation, creating good-paying jobs, reshoring our manufacturing industry, unleashing American energy dominance, securing new investment, securing our borders, deporting dangerous illegal criminals from our communities, and enforcing tough-on-crime policies,” Ingle said.
There is anticipated to be movement on Capitol Hill regarding permitting reform, defense spending, and potentially the debt limit during the lame-duck legislative session before Democrats take over in January 2027. Trump is also already pressing forward his foreign policy agenda, specifically with Iran, Russia, and tariffs.
“I would rather not destroy the rest of the country, if possible, but maybe I’ll have to,” the president said of Iran. “You’ll know soon enough.”
“If I took tariffs off right now, every one of those plants would immediately stop construction,” he went on.
It is unclear how Miller will work with Congress when the new lawmakers are sworn in on Jan. 3, 2027, though he has experience on Capitol Hill as a staffer for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican.
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Meanwhile, Democrats have both criticized and welcomed Miller’s promotion, the latter because it could help the party win the White House in the 2028 presidential election.
“Stephen Miller is probably the single darkest force, the Darth Vader of this country right now, of this presidential leadership,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told the BBC on Friday. “What he’s done with the cruel and chaotic immigration enforcement, I hate to have that kind of ethic, those kinds of morals, as the chief of staff for the president. But it’s probably what Trump wants.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
