If Susie Wiles was the cartoon angel on President Donald Trump’s shoulder trying to talk him out of his worst impulses, Stephen Miller is the pitchfork-wielding devil on the opposite side, encouraging his most violent and authoritarian desires.
As of Friday, Wiles is out of the White House, and Miller is now Trump’s top aide. The elevation of the openly racist and radical Miller, who frequently shares his incendiary and autocratic views on Fox News, may be a telling clue of where the last two years of Trump’s term are headed.
“Trump at his narcissistic worst,” said Ty Cobb, who served in the White House Counsel’s Office during Trump’s first term. “Miller, who championed the killers of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and is responsible for the cages and cruelty of ICE and many other policies viewed as atrocities, is a fascist and a racist of the highest order.”
Miller’s ascendance likely signals that Trump, despite occasional comments in recent days about wanting to work on a bipartisan basis with Democrats, intends to mostly engage in political combat. Miller is not known for his work with Democrats, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded to the news of Miller’s promotion by calling for his firing instead.
“Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” Jeffries wrote on social media. “His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumour.”
Wiles, who just successfully battled breast cancer, came from a mainstream Republican background in Florida, where she worked for moderate Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney and was known for her efforts on environmental causes. She was the driving force behind Trump’s political resurrection after his pariah status following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Prior to joining Trump’s first campaign in 2015, Miller had worked for former Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, most enthusiastically in his efforts to block immigration reform. He was known for angry, all-capital missives to reporters who, in his view, were not adequately hyping the threat posed to the nation by undocumented immigrants.
He did not respond to HuffPost queries.
Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Trump had certainly used racism for his own aggrandisement prior to his association with Miller. He had demanded the death penalty for the “Central Park Five” even after they were exonerated. He became the highest-profile promoter of the conspiracy theory that the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, was not born in the United States.
But after Miller joined his campaign, Trump’s language about minorities, and particularly migrants, grew far more hateful. In speeches Miller had written for him, Trump began citing violent crime committed by illegal immigrants at his rallies, describing in gory, almost pornographic detail what the victims had suffered.
After Trump’s 2016 election, it was Miller who pushed hardest for anti-immigrant policies. It was he who largely wrote the first Muslim ban, even though he is not a lawyer. It was quickly tossed out in court.
In 2018, Miller’s uncle famously wrote an op-ed for Politico calling his nephew an “immigration hypocrite” and saying their entire family might have perished had the immigration policy Miller favours been in effect when their ancestors fled the anti-Jewish pogroms of Eastern Europe.
“I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country,” David Glosser wrote.
In his second term, Miller has been the most energetic advocate for Trump’s attacks on birthright citizenship, mass deportations of migrants, including to a prison known for torture in El Salvador, and a crackdown on allegations of fraud by Somali immigrants — even as Trump continues to pardon convicted fraudsters on a regular basis.
That many of the policies Miller has championed helped bring about a catastrophic midterm election for the president’s party ― Latino voters swung a whopping 29 percentage points toward Democrats as the party won every congressional district that touched the U.S.-Mexico border ― did not seem to bother Trump.
“Stephen’s been with me from beginning. He gets it; very good politically, and he’s a very good man,” he told reporters as he left the White House for another weekend at his South Florida country club.
“Trump clearly learned nothing from the midterms. Doubling down on the architect of his administration’s cruel and inhumane mass deportation agenda is hardly the answer,” said Sarah Matthews, who worked in Trump’s first-term press office but quit after his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt. “And 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.”
“That many of the policies Miller has championed helped bring about a catastrophic midterm election for the president’s party did not seem to bother Trump.”
Other Republicans downplayed the idea that Miller’s promotion was a tell about how Trump would approach his lame-duck years. Bruce Haynes, a Republican communications consultant, wrote on social media that Trump may simply be rewarding Miller’s total and complete loyalty.
“This is more likely ‘next trusted man up’ than any big strategic signal,” Haynes wrote.
Another first-term Trump staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Miller would be a good chief of staff because he has Trump’s ear and also the fear, if not respect, of the West Wing.
“It’s a good choice,” he said. “When he speaks, they have to know that’s as good as coming from Trump.”
Hogan Gidley, another first-term Trump veteran, said Miller’s experience dealing with Trump’s impeachments would be useful with Democrats taking control of both chambers in two months. “He was in the fights in the first term with a weaponized Congress. So, he’ll be ready,” Gidley said.
