WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday named Stephen Miller to replace Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, elevating one of his most controversial advisors just days after Republicans suffered historic losses in the midterm elections.
The appointment signaled Trump would double down on an agenda that has alienated broad swaths of voters, including Latinos, who shifted away from the GOP in record numbers Tuesday following a campaign of aggressive immigration enforcement spearheaded by Miller.
Wiles had been seen as a relatively moderate voice within Trump’s orbit. But Miller, the deputy chief of staff and a native of Los Angeles, has been the architect of Trump’s most hard-line policies since the outset of the president’s political career, advocating a push for mass deportations that sent fear throughout immigrant communities nationwide.
“President Trump is the most transformative political leader in American History — and he has single-handedly saved America from those who would destroy it,” Miller said Friday on social media after the announcement.
“The mission now is more clear than ever: Fight with all of our soul to support our President and defend this magnificent Republic.”
Trump told reporters that he chose Miller for the role because he’s a “great manager.”
“Stephen’s been with me from the beginning,” Trump said. “He gets it. Very good politically.”
But across party lines in Washington, elected officials and pundits wondered aloud what the president’s political strategy might be in picking Miller, whose policy prescriptions had led to the worst election rout for Republicans since the Watergate era.
Democrats had hoped their historic victories would be sufficient to sour the president on Miller, a potential target of congressional investigation by the incoming majority of the House Oversight Committee.
Those probes are likely to continue, with Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who’s anticipated to be the incoming chair of the oversight committee, telling Miller on Friday to “lawyer up.”
“Stephen Miller is the architect of the unconstitutional ICE raids that have terrorized our communities and kidnapped and killed American citizens and immigrant families,” Garcia said. “Oversight Democrats will continue to investigate Miller for his misconduct, and we will fight against his hateful policies in Congress and the courts.”
On the Senate side, Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) wrote on social media that Miller “is the chief architect of Trump’s racist, cruel, and un-American campaign of terror across our country.”
“Innocent people have died and families have been torn apart because of the policies he’s eagerly pushed,” she said. He “should be under investigation, not running the White House.”
Trump on Friday called Miller one of his “most trusted advisors” and said he would take over as chief of staff Monday. Trump said Wiles “has done an outstanding job” and will be moving to his political operation, which aims to play kingmaker in the Republican presidential primaries in 2028.
A key player in Trump’s 2024 campaign, she is the first person in a senior White House role to resign following Republicans’ massive defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Wiles, who was the first woman to serve as chief of staff to a U.S. president, said Friday was her last day.
“I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First,” she said on social media. “While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will.”
Miller was brought up in liberal Santa Monica, where his years in high school were difficult and filled with pushback from peers for his “vitriolic” and conservative viewpoints, according to Jean Guerrero, a former Times columnist and author of the 2020 Miller biography “Hatemonger.”
“And for whatever reason, he’s had this grievance about that ever since, and he’s been trying through various means, to have what I see as a form of revenge on the communities that rejected him in Los Angeles,” Guerrero has said.
Miller then railed against multiculturalism, political correctness and his Latino classmates. In video obtained by Univision, a young Miller says, “I will say and I will do things that no one else in their right mind would say or do,” and tells a crowd, “Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up our trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us?”
Criticism of Miller’s selection poured in from Democrats.
“Stephen Miller is the most dangerous person in Trump’s administration and should be fired instead of promoted,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) wrote. “Americans overwhelmingly voted to end the chaos and lower costs. Stephen Miller has done nothing but sow hatred and foster corruption.”
David Axelrod, a prominent Democratic commentator and former advisor to President Obama, wrote, “Few did more to contribute to the debacle the @gop just endured than Stephen Miller. The backlash to his brutal ICE raids and nativist rants can be seen in returns all over the country. And for that, he’s … PROMOTED?!?!”
Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media that Miller “is an amazing patriot and will do great things,” calling his elevation a “well deserved promotion!” He also thanked Wiles “for her friendship and service to the president and our country.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s former press secretary, called Miller “the perfect choice” on social media, saying he would “make the final two years of the President’s term a resounding success.”
“Now is the time to fix what’s not working and double down on all of the victories we’ve already achieved. What we cannot do is fall into despair and hand the country over to the Radical Democrats,” Leavitt wrote.
Chris Zepeda-Millán, an associate professor of public policy, Chicana/o studies and political science at UCLA, said Miller always has been at the center of Trump’s anti-immigrant actions and policies, and his elevation should be understood as a threat to immigrant communities.
“I know everyone’s celebrating the blue wave right now, but if I was part of an immigrant community, which I am, if I was an immigrant rights organization or any organization with significant amount of immigrants, I would be bracing myself for most likely a massive surge of attacks against the immigrant community,” said Zepeda-Millán, a co-author of “Walls, Cages, and Family Separation: Race and Immigration Policy in the Trump Era.” “This is just a huge red flag.”
He said Trump is now a lame duck president without much hope of passing legislation through Congress and facing a wave of subpoenas from Democrats once they take power.
“The one thing he’s been able to do that he promised was terrorize immigrant communities, and now he’s kind of giving full rein, openly, not just behind the scenes now, to Stephen Miller to try to do it any way he can,” Zepeda-Millán said. “He’s doubling down so this will be his legacy.”
