Under Siege, Trump Elevates Stephen Miller, His Most Combative Lieutenant, to Chief of Staff

On Friday, three days after Republicans took what the Sydney Morning Herald's Michael Koziol calls generational defeats in the midterm elections, Donald Trump named Stephen Miller his chief of staff. It is the most powerful job in the White House after the president's own, and the choice has been read, in this analysis, as a deliberate act of defiance.

Miller, 41, is already a familiar face in Washington, though mostly in effigy. He appears on posters stapled to walls by left-wing activists and on cardboard signs at the city's anti-Trump rallies. He is often described as a fascist or drawn as a Nazi, even though he and his wife, Katie, are Jewish. On news of the appointment, Anthony Scaramucci, a one-time White House communications director, called him "little Himmler," a reference to the Holocaust architect Heinrich Himmler.

For many of the administration's opponents, no figure is more loathed. Miller is seen as more ideological than Trump himself, at times a kind of shadow president pushing his boss toward harder positions, particularly on immigration. The wariness is not confined to the left. Among Republicans and inside the administration, Miller is regarded as sharp, capable and exacting, but also as a dogmatic zealot and provocateur, sometimes unnervingly so.

Trump has acknowledged as much, with a joke. At a news conference on crime last October, he said he loved watching Miller on television and would like him to explain his true feelings, before adding: "Maybe not his truest feelings. That might be going a little bit too far." Now he has put a man he regards as a bit of an extremist in charge of the White House.

The Democrats are already preparing a response. Miller is on their target list for the congressional investigations they intend to open into Trump's decisions and personal enrichment. Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman, said on Friday that the "unfortunate promotion" would not shield Miller from congressional oversight.

On the right, the reaction was triumphant. Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist and MAGA influencer, has argued on his show and podcast all week that the election results must put the White House on a war footing. His show is called War Room, and he treats the MAGA project as an existential fight for America's future. He called Miller "a MAGA warrior" and said the appointment shows Trump rejecting calls to kowtow to the Republican establishment, "as Susie Wiles wanted to." Wiles is the outgoing chief of staff. "This is an 'F you' to the Republican establishment," Bannon said, adding that Democrats mean "full-on political warfare" and that anyone who doesn't grasp that is missing the plot.

There is a gap between Trump's public and private messages. Since the midterms, his public remarks have stressed working with Democrats in Congress. Privately, according to the analysis, he has told aides to "use the nuclear option" to get his agenda through. Koziol writes that Miller is the man for that job: he will urge defiance and combat over cooperation. Observers had wondered whether Trump's last two years would be "lame duck" or "raging bull," and Koziol concludes the appointment points to the latter.

Wiles's exit also extends a pattern in the administration. Koziol lists women who have left or been forced out, including Pam Bondi, the former attorney-general, Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who was labor secretary, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Katie Zacharia, whose time as press secretary was brief. Men have fared better: FBI director Kash Patel has survived multiple scandals, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth remains in his job for now, though speculation about his future is growing. Hegseth is said to be eyeing a Senate seat from Tennessee.

What to watch next is how Miller's combative approach meets the Democrats' investigations once Congress turns to them.