President Donald Trump, cornered after a disastrous midterm election, turned to Stephen Miller to be his new White House chief of staff, a move that heralded a plan for head-on confrontation with the new Democratic majority in Congress. Trump and Miller will relish the fight — for a time, at least. It is inevitable, though, that Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff who turned Trump’s darkest visions into policy, will overreach. It’s difficult to see how Miller pushing the powers of the presidency past their limit will help Republicans win back the voters who have turned their backs on Trump.
For all the conciliatory noises Trump made in postelection interviews, his promotion of Miller speaks far louder. “Well, he’s a great fighter,” Trump told reporters Friday. According to The Atlantic, “one person familiar with Trump’s decision to elevate Miller” said he wanted “someone who ‘will crack skulls.’” Such a statement suggests that Trump isn’t in touch with political reality.
Miller’s recent track record belies any chance of pending conciliation. He has been behind every executive order Trump has signed this term, including efforts to unlock emergency powers by declaring an invasion on the southern border, overrule the birthright citizenship clause of the Constitution, and import white South Africans the administration grossly mischaracterizes as victims of genocide. Among Trump’s inner circle, Miller gives Trump the worst and most dangerous advice — and now he will be the last one in the room with the president.
Among Trump’s inner circle, Miller gives Trump the worst and most dangerous advice — and now he will be the last one in the room with the president.
Despite military operations being far outside his remit, Miller engineered a campaign of missile strikes on alleged drug boats in the Pacific and Caribbean. He bears some responsibility, then, for ending more than 200 lives without evidence of guilt, let alone a trial, in service of a convoluted plan to slow immigration into the United States. He has shown a shocking disregard for the rights of American citizens. With Miller leading the discussion, it’s frightening to imagine internal disputes about suspending habeas corpus for immigrants or invoking the Insurrection Act after protests.
“If it wasn’t for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now,” Miller told a crowd at Mar-a-Lago on Friday after Trump made him the new chief of staff. He said Trump “saved America” in a way that suggested he meant it literally, and as he looked at Trump, he pledged “my absolute loyalty, my unwavering commitment and my total devotion to your success and the success of this country.”
Miller either is convinced that Trump is the only way to bring his white nationalist policies to life, or he believes that his preferences are Trump’s and vice versa. He started as a speechwriter in Trump’s first term and showed an ability to channel the president’s voice and vision, which has served him well. Even when Trump has openly worried he has gone too far — e.g., after immigration agents killed two American citizens in Minneapolis — he has never pushed Miller away.
Miller will now have even more leeway to act as an avatar for Trump and let the power of the presidency flow through him. The New York Times reported that Miller will encourage Trump to “get back to policies that are popular with the MAGA base” and “will energize the voters who elected Mr. Trump in 2024.” Miller’s dedication to cruelty and mass deportations remains unabated, and it seems likely that the policies he wants to “get back to” all resemble pogroms.
He does reportedly want to smooth over tensions with the Make America Healthy Again-wing of the movement, which felt frustrated with Miller’s predecessor, Susie Wiles, and has been venting about the administration’s slow-walking its demands. I once described Wiles as “the perfect enabler-in-chief,” but she at least attempted to nudge Trump toward decisions that minimized political fallout. Miller will only guide him further toward extremism.
Apparently, he will do little to address the economic distress many of Trump’s own supporters have expressed. While he has reportedly acknowledged the high cost of the Iran war and wishes to see it wound down, according to The Wall Street Journal, “Miller also stood out as a believer in Trump’s trade agenda, unlike some other presidential advisers who saw tariffs as helping fuel cost-of-living concerns that dominated the election.”
The Times reported that Miller was back on his usual call with Department of Homeland Security officials like nothing happened immediately after the election, hammering immigration officials to meet his arrest quotas. The campaign of fear and terror he has organized against the migrant community has played terribly among independents and business owners who have seen their workers deported. Going full throttle once more might churn up support from the most toxic factions among Trump’s followers but do little to improve his standing with others.
There is less appetite for Miller’s grim vision of America than he will ever be able to admit.
In the process, Miller seems more than happy to provoke a constitutional crisis as he and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought press the limits of legislators’ patience. The two have reportedly been working to “chart a second-term agenda with an emphasis on executive actions that don’t require congressional approval.” And unlike Vought, Miller is immune to the threat of impeachment and removal. This combination sets up a looming fight with Congress over oversight, the separation of powers and where a president’s power ends.
The likelihood that Miller would win in such a fight seems lower now, though, especially given the horrified reactions to his promotion. Miller also must meet Trump’s high expectations without stealing the limelight or getting too much credit for any success.
A prevailing theory is that Trump thinks of Miller as his new Roy Cohn, the lawyer slash fixer whose shady, manipulative tactics left a deep impression on Trump when he was young. Miller is who you bring in when you think having the strongest will is all it takes to reshape the world.
There is less appetite for Miller’s grim vision of America than he will ever be able to admit. America’s voters indicated that they want Trump’s White House restrained. In trying to break those bonds, Miller will lash out in ways that will only draw them tighter, choking off what little support remains for an already diminished MAGA movement.
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