President Donald J. Trump’s decision to bring in Stephen Miller as chief of staff makes sense.
Susie Wiles has done an amazing job at holding together an extraordinarily active administration led by a president who could change on a dime or innovate while walking down the corridor. I told her once she was the equal of James Baker as the best chief of staff I had ever seen — and Baker’s president (Ronald Reagan) was much easier to coordinate with and structure events around than President Trump.
Wiles was remarkably effective in the positive, building stage of the Trump second term.
However, the election results gave the Democrats control of the House and Senate starting on Jan. 3. That changes the rhythm and focus of the Trump White House.
President Trump is clearly not going to spend the next two years passively allowing the Democrats to dominate. Even if President Trump wanted to be passive and cooperative, the Democrats would not allow him to do so. They are committed to an investigative and confrontational hearing strategy that will be much bigger and more intense than Watergate.
Furthermore, as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has already indicated, the big government socialists who now dominate the Democratic Party are going to push for radical change — if only to make a record to set the stage for the 2028 presidential election.
On procedural, legal, investigative, and policy issues, President Trump is going to have a newly energized Democratic Party doing all it can to force him and the Republicans on defense.
This setting is the equivalent of “going to the mattresses” in “The Godfather” movies. So, President Trump needs an adviser who can serve as a consigliere, who is tough and combative enough to take the Democrats head-on and find ways to put them on defense and keep them there.
Miller has been a hardcore conservative and political activist for virtually his entire life. Back in middle and high school, he was already taking on the left and fighting for conservative values. As a student at Duke, he showed remarkable courage in being the one student who stood up for the rights of the three Duke lacrosse team players who had been falsely accused of rape. In subsequent years, we learned that they were innocent, but in the initial wave of accusations, it took enormous courage for Miller to stand with the young men and defend their due process rights of being innocent until proven guilty.
Miller will bring this kind of tough combativeness and courage to the chief of staff job. He has been with President Trump for 11 years. He has been a steady White House presence with an enormous range of understanding of its policies and goals. He has been especially effective in shaping the entire combination of border and migration policies which have been his primary focus.
The Democrats will find they are negotiating with an extraordinarily smart person who is dedicated to the same goals as President Trump. They will find that he cannot be intimidated or exhausted — and I expect they will find that in many interactions, Miller will have outthought and outmaneuvered them.
A striking fact about Miller is the loyalty and friendship he arouses from his colleagues. He will have a deep reservoir of support within the White House and from the Trump team.
Bringing in Miller as chief of staff is a clear sign that the President is not planning a retreat or a slowdown. Trump wants to accomplish as much in these next two years as he did in the last two. With a wartime consigliere like Miller, he has made a powerful first step in that direction.
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Dear Newt,
Wonderful information. Thank you.
I did not know that Stephen Miller is a Duke graduate, as am I, '68. I followed closely the terrible lacrosse accusations and the corruption, not only of the woman, but of the politicians who wanted to ride on her evil accusations. I am so proud of his stand with the players and his stance on immigration.
We'll undoubtedly need a junkyard bulldog (No disrespect) these coming years.