With the selection of Stephen Miller as chief of staff, Trump prepares for a battle

Following the Republican Party’s crushing defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections, Donald Trump said he would be willing to work with Democrats.

However, on Friday he promoted Stephen Miller, his iron-fisted political strategist and longtime adviser, to replace Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff.

Far from being a conciliatory gesture toward Congress, Miller’s promotion could be a sign that the president is preparing for political battle by placing a partisan firebrand in the top job in the White House.

“The mission is now clearer than ever: fight with all our soul to support our president and defend this magnificent republic,” Miller posted on X, adding that he felt “beyond honored” to be Trump’s pick for the job.

A powerful position

The chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in Washington, is the gatekeeper of information reaching the president, the agenda-setter in the White House and the chief negotiator with Congress and other outside political interests.

“Stephen Miller has been with me from the beginning,” Trump told reporters after announcing the move on his Truth Social website. “He understands.”

Miller is best known for being the driving force behind the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies, which have included increasing funding for enforcement operations across the United States.

He made headlines when he called Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents during a massive deportation operation in Minneapolis, a “domestic terrorist” and “murderer.”

He later walked back those words, saying federal agents “may not have followed” proper protocol.

According to local information, he has also played a leading role in US military operations in Venezuela and against alleged drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which critics have condemned as extrajudicial executions.

Miller joined Trump’s political team at the start of his presidential bid in 2016 as a strategist and provocative speaker at his boisterous campaign rallies.

He was one of the few senior White House officials to remain in his position throughout his first term. And he remained loyal to Trump during his political exile after the failure of his attempts to reverse his electoral defeat in 2020. And already in Trump’s second term, he returned to the influential position of deputy chief of staff for political affairs.

Wiles, who co-led the president’s successful 2024 re-election campaign, built a reputation as a cool-headed professional who avoided the White House staff upheavals, dramatic policy shifts and personality clashes that characterized Trump’s first presidential term.

However, in recent months, the president began to grow resentful of Wiles as his political popularity in the United States waned, culminating in Tuesday’s crushing election defeat.

He was also reportedly bothered by news reports that people close to Wiles were landing lucrative consulting positions thanks to their connections to the president.

uncompromising positions

While Trump on Friday praised Miller’s effectiveness as a manager, working with Congress could prove challenging.

It’s hard to overstate the rejection Miller generates among most Democrats, and also among some Republicans.

“Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in X. “His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor.”

Earlier this year, Miller posted on social media that James Talarico, who just won the Texas state Senate seat, was “his first transgender candidate” for the House.

The Democratic Party offered a curt, profanity-laced response, telling Miller to shut up.

Now Miller will have to negotiate with a US Senate that includes the newly elected Talarico as one of its rising stars, after an election in which polls revealed that 58% of voters believed the government’s immigration control measures had “gone too far” and Hispanics turned decisively against the Republican candidates.

In a social media post on Wednesday attempting to explain Republican losses in the midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance, a front-runner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, wrote that he was “open to the idea that we should change law enforcement, focusing more on companies that hire illegal labor, for example.”

Now that seems less likely with a hardline immigration politician at the helm of the White House.

Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina who is retiring at the end of the year, has been especially critical of Miller. He has called him “incompetent” and “the architect of some of the most absurd proposals of the Trump White House.”

Other Republicans, however, have praised him.

“Stephen Miller has been a true conservative warrior since his days as a Senate staffer, a staunch defender of law and order against the left’s illegal encroachments and lawlessness, and an unwavering fighter for President Trump for more than a decade,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee posted on X after Trump’s announcement.

At a time when congressional Democrats are promising to launch new investigations and exert greater oversight over the Trump administration, it appears the president wants a “warrior” and a “fighter” to be the kind of person who runs the White House.

This article was originally written in English and we used an artificial intelligence tool to translate it. A BBC journalist reviewed the text before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.

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