“In the initial days after the staggering rebuke Republicans suffered in Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Trump appeared subdued — almost conciliatory,” as The New York Times puts it.
But then, on Friday, he replaced Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller.
“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,” says The Atlantic.
In Trump’s first term, Miller had a role in the separation of migrant families at the border and Trump’s travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries.
In the four years Trump was out of office, Miller mapped out the second-term agenda, overseeing the team drafting the dozens of executive orders that Trump signed immediately after returning to the White House.
In this term, beyond Miller’s well-known mass deportation efforts, he’s pushed Trump’s lethal strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean that the administration has claimed were carrying drugs, helped use the powers of the federal government to target political opponents and universities, overseen the federal crackdown in D.C., and has been heavily involved in the efforts to assert more federal control over elections, says a separate Times article.
Marc Short, who was the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, says Miller is “intertwined” with Trump. “Most of the shots are being called from Stephen’s office in the West Wing.”
Miller “was kind of already running the White House in so many ways, so you can expect more of the same from the White House,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a video posted on X. “Only this time he’s going to go into a hyper, hyper mode because they’re about to get investigated in every way possible by the Democrats who are going to control the all powerful House and Senate committees.”
At a gala at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, Miller said: “If it wasn’t for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now. 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.”
An early test for Miller will be whether he can satisfy Trump’s desire to punish his perceived political enemies, says The Wall Street Journal. One of Trump’s biggest frustrations with Wiles was that she and the Justice Department weren’t doing enough to go after people seen as leaking classified material, to jail reporters who publish such material and to prosecute his opponents.
Here are some “memorable” statements of Miller’s over the years, from The Associated Press.
John’s daily commentary on briefing.center
Here is John’s commentary today, titled “Americans voted on quality of life. Will the press cover that for them?”
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