ANALYSIS | What to know about Stephen Miller, Trump’s new chief of staff

Following the GOP’s substantial losses in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, President Donald Trump announced that he would be replacing his chief of staff and 2024 campaign manager, Susie Wiles, with longtime aide and advisor Stephen Miller, then serving as deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor.

Trump administration figures and conservative leaders were quick to congratulate Miller on his promotion, touting his record as one of the chief proponents of the President’s “Make America Great Again” agenda. In particular, Miller is widely recognized as the architect of Trump’s immigration policy, a fact which proponents of strict immigration enforcement said they hope indicates a firmer and more effective approach to immigration moving forward.

“We will be at the farms. We will be at the factories. We will be in the industrial hubs. We will be talking to DoorDash and Uber Eats,” Oversight Project President Mike Howell said in anticipation of more stringent enforcement operations, according to Politico.

Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian anticipated that Miller’s political savvy and gift for “surviving and deciding which fights have a good chance of being won” could result in more effective enforcement efforts moving forward.

“This is something Miller has been navigating for a decade, the competing tensions within the GOP on immigration,” he observed.

Democrats, meanwhile, reacted with outrage at the news of Miller’s elevation to chief of staff. House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., derided Miller as “a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” saying in a Nov. 6 X post that the Republican advisor’s “presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor.”

“Stephen Miller is a stone-cold racist,” Jeffries said at a Nov. 9 press conference, when asked if he would be willing to cooperate with Miller during the 120th Congress, where Jeffries is generally expected to take over as House Speaker. “His track record speaks for itself, and I've got zero interest in working with that kind of individual.”

So who is Stephen Miller, and what can voters expect from him in his new role as the President’s right-hand man?

Meet Mr. Miller

Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Santa Monica, California, Miller adopted conservative political positions early in life and was reportedly known for voicing his opinions on immigration in high school. According to the critical biography Hatemonger by Jean Guerrero, the young Miller would regularly wear suits and ties, take weekend trips to Las Vegas casinos, and insist that classmates and even school faculty speak English.

During his high school years, Miller was a frequent call-in guest to The Larry Elder Show and developed a friendship with conservative writer and political activist David Horowitz. He regularly wrote articles for Horowitz’s magazine and local and school magazines and newspapers, criticizing liberal immigration policy, multiculturalism, and left-wing social and economic policies while promoting patriotic and conservative values.

As a student at Duke University, Miller authored a conservative political column titled “Miller Time” in The Duke Chronicle, where he garnered a reputation as a skilled rhetorician and pugilistic debater, and became executive director of the Duke Conservative Union.

Miller was also the most prominent defender of three Duke University lacrosse team players who were falsely accused of rape, appearing on national television shows like Nancy Grace and The O’Reilly Factor to analyze the accusations made by Crystal Mangum, which were later revealed to be false. Miller condemned Duke University leadership, fellow students, and mainstream media outlets for hastily accepting Mangum’s accusations as fact despite flaws in her narrative.

A rising star

After graduating from Duke University, Miller started working for Michele Bachmann, then a Republican congresswoman representing Minnesota, a position Horowitz arranged for him. After about two years as Bachmann’s press secretary, Miller reportedly became disillusioned with her policies and, again with Horowitz’s recommendation, began working for Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2009.

As Sessions’ press secretary, Miller played a key role in shaping the senator’s policy on immigration, adopting an increasingly robust position on the issue and developing relationships with experts on immigration law and research in organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform.

In 2013, Miller was responsible for organizing congressional opposition to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act proposed by the Gang of Eight — a bipartisan group composed of Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Chuck Schumer of New York, and Republican Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Marco Rubio of Florida, and the late Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona. The legislation would have eventually granted mass amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. at the time.

Although the bill was approved in the Democratic-controlled Senate, Miller prevented its passage in the Republican-led House of Representatives by visiting individual congressmen and handing out binders packed with research that he had conducted on the negative impacts and enormous costs to taxpayers of the proposed amnesty.

Following Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss to former President Barack Obama, Miller and Sessions authored The Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority, rebuking and rejecting a proposed pivot to softer immigration enforcement within the GOP.

Miller time

When Trump announced his first presidential campaign in 2015, his rhetoric and position on immigration resonated with Miller, who sought a position with the Trump campaign team. Despite recommendations from Sessions and other friends and colleagues, Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was initially hesitant to hire Miller, who crafted immigration strategies for Trump regardless.

Miller’s hard work paid off, and, in 2016, he was named a senior policy advisor and speechwriter for the Trump campaign. He secured endorsements for Trump from the National Border Patrol Council and Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trump.

Within months, Miller was Trump’s “opening act” at campaign rallies, delivering impassioned and patriotic speeches to prepare the crowds for the then-presidential candidate’s own electric performances, and authored both Trump’s nomination acceptance speech for the 2016 Republican National Convention and his 2017 inauguration speech. He also assisted Trump in debate prep and took the lead on much of the policy work for Trump’s first 100 days in office.

Alongside former Breitbart News executive chairman and Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon, Miller co-authored the majority of Trump’s executive orders throughout his first term and laid great emphasis on immigration policy.

Miller has been credited with instituting the first Trump administration’s travel bans, reintroducing restrictions on refugee and asylum admissions, and leading efforts to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and impose severe caps on student, worker, and other temporary visas. He also proposed an executive order to restrict birthright citizenship for the children of foreign nationals in the U.S. without legal permanent residence, although Trump would not actually sign such an order until returning to office in 2025, and advocated deploying the military at the southern border.

Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, frequently clashed with Miller, restricting his access to the Oval Office amid concerns that Miller’s hardline approach to immigration would upset Republican donors and undermine the fragile unity of the GOP, but Priebus’ successor in the role, John F. Kelly, worked hard to develop a relationship with Miller and often sided with him on policy matters.

Following the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Miller was one of the few Trump administration officials to remain closely allied to the President.

The loyalist

After Trump left office in 2021, Miller remained committed to the “Make America Great Again” agenda.

He founded the America First Legal public interest organization and set about building relationships with congressmen to support a second Trump administration’s policies. Miller also worked hard preparing for what he believed to be Trump’s inevitable return to the White House, drafting Trump’s day-one executive orders and developing a “flood the zone” strategy intended to inundate political opponents with too many executive actions to immediately challenge in federal court.

Miller again worked on crafting a thorough and robust immigration agenda and staffing the second Trump administration with allies who would not only support but enact the President’s agenda.

Following Trump’s historic 2024 election, Miller was named deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor, dual roles in which he was expected to have a high degree of influence over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). He was responsible for devising most DHS strategies, often relying on rarely-used laws like the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and advocating daily minimums for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests, and advising DOJ officials on various staffing decisions and legal strategies.

Crucially, Miller was the chief architect and advocate of Trump’s federalization of the District of Columbia National Guard to address skyrocketing violent crime rates in the nation’s capital.

After Republicans lost their majorities in both the House and Senate in the 2026 midterm elections, a result largely linked to discontent among the voter base over the Iran war and the resulting economic impact for everyday Americans, Trump announced that he would replace Wiles with Miller. According to The New York Times, Miller’s “pitch” for taking the top staff position in the White House was wrapping up the Iran war and returning to a focus on domestic issues.

Making America great again

Although he is primarily known for his intensive focus on immigration policy, Miller will now oversee a broad range of issues as chief of staff, from the White House’s position on artificial intelligence and health care to economic policy and staffing positions.

After he was named chief of staff, a number of administration officials revealed that Miller’s influence even before assuming the new role had extended beyond immigration and that he had managed to bridge gaps between the varying factions of the conservative coalition that elected Trump in 2024, uniting the coalition around the motivating factor behind his own immigration policies: a burning desire to benefit the American people.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Miller is, next to Kennedy himself, the “strongest” supporter of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) program in the administration. Addressing a MAHA Action event Nov. 11, Kennedy referred to Miller as “a friend of our movement.”

“And I don’t think anything is going to get in our way now,” he added.

Former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also said that Miller “is 100% committed to the MAHA Movement. It’s one of the many things we bonded over as friends and fellow parents to young children.”

Miller will likely also hold sway over foreign policy and military actions, directing the Trump administration’s attention closer to home than further abroad. Miller, a close friend of War Secretary Pete Hegseth,  is in “lockstep” on priorities for the Department of War, the Daily Wire reported.

“Stephen and Pete have been extremely close since the beginning of the administration. Their close partnership has been instrumental in advancing some of the president’s biggest national security priorities since day one like securing the border, multiple guard deployments and targeting narcos in our hemisphere,” an unnamed senior administration official said, the Daily Wire reported. “I think you’ll continue to see how [in] lockstep they are in the coming months and not just with the president’s priorities.”

Upon Miller’s promotion, Hegseth posted on X, “Patriots in control.” Multiple reports have claimed that Miller’s immediate predecessor, Wiles, was responsible for a campaign to blame Hegseth for the war in Iran and ensure that he was impeached.

The Times reported in 2025 that Miller was already involved in staffing decisions at the dawn of the second Trump administration, ensuring that key members of the expansive executive branch’s myriad of departments and agencies support the President’s agenda, earning him the loyalty and friendship of many throughout the administration.

“Miller is generally well-liked on the Trump staff, though he is regarded as unusually intense and has been known to berate government officials he deemed obstructive,” the newspaper reported. “He never argues with Mr. Trump, certainly never in front of others. Once it’s clear to him that Mr. Trump is headed in a certain direction, he sets aside his reservations.”

According to a Nov. 11 Axios report, Miller intends to use his new position to rebuild trust with young male voters and deliver on domestic policy promises. The new chief of staff’s agenda centers on effective immigration enforcement, eliminating woke policies from colleges and workplaces, cracking down on the widespread defrauding of taxpayer-funded benefits, and lowering the prices of essentials for Americans.

Axios also noted that “Miller's ideological drive makes him mostly impervious to typical Washington lobbying,” which immigration policy experts anticipate will be a benefit for enforcement efforts, which many both inside and outside the Trump administration have linked to the affordability issues that proved so detrimental to Republicans in the midterms.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have been at least partly responsible, with the backing of Wiles and Washington lobbyists, for trying to shield U.S.-based employers from repercussions for hiring illegal aliens, according to Politico. Howell said that Miller’s promotion signals to businesses hiring illegal aliens, “Get your affairs in order.”

Krikorian suggested that a move under Miller to make hiring illegal aliens too costly for employers would likely bolster Trump’s promised mass deportation program, a priority for Miller himself, by removing the chief incentive for illegal immigration: jobs that should go to American workers.

“That’s the kind of stuff that’ll incentivize compliance and promote self deportation, if they do consistent nationwide paperwork enforcement,” the immigration expert said.

One of the very few who has been with Trump since the beginning of his rollercoaster career in politics, Miller has devoted himself almost entirely to realizing the President’s pledge to “Make America Great Again.” His tenure as chief of staff is likely to prove no different, based on his record, although he may prove more effective in the role than his predecessors.

Former Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy observed in 2025 that Miller “has the President’s complete trust.”

“Trump’s complained about everyone. Never him.”