Trump aide Stephen Miller has singular control of migration policy
WASHINGTON - At President Donald Trump’s speeches and rallies, Stephen Miller often can be found backstage, watching the teleprompter operator. As other White House staffers chat or look at their phones, Miller’s attention remains glued to the controls.
The energy and crowd-thrilling parts of Trump’s speeches usually happen during his impromptu diversions from the planned address. When Trump veers, colleagues say, Miller sometimes directs the operator to scroll higher or lower through the speech, so when the president is ready to pick it up again, he will hit those passages and make those points.
Miller knows where he wants the president to go.
At defining moments in his career, Trump has benefited from clever writers and brand-makers who helped craft his public image. A co-author made him a best-selling business guru with “The Art of the Deal.” The producers of “The Apprentice” cast him as a reality television star.
Now it is Miller, Trump’s 33-year-old senior adviser, who is writing the central plot of his presidency.
Two and a half years into Trump’s term, Miller’s power in the White House is at its peak, according to top administration officials. As one of Trump’s longest-tenured and most trusted aides, his influence in the West Wing is rivaled only by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, they say.
Miller, a former press aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, was among the first staffers on Trump’s presidential campaign. He has since provided Trump with unswerving loyalty and fierce devotion, translating the president’s frustrations and grievances into exalted language and policy prescriptions.
In Trump, Miller has found a champion for his ideological goals. He is the singular force behind the Trump administration’s immigration agenda - making him a crucial White House figure on an issue central to the president’s reelection campaign.
In an interview Friday with The Washington Post, Miller aggressively minimized his role in the administration and would accept no credit for its direction. He said he sees himself as a conservative populist, someone who pushed his liberal high school in California to have the Pledge of Allegiance recited on a daily basis, who says he sees U.S. citizenship “as something sacred” and who regards immigration as a defining element of the nation’s future.
Effusive in praising his boss, Miller said he experienced a “jolt of electricity to my soul” when he saw Trump announce his presidential run, “as though everything that I felt at the deepest levels of my heart were for now being expressed by a candidate for our nation’s highest office before a watching world.”
With sections of the West Wing under summer renovation, Miller has been working out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door, setting up in the Secretary of War suite, a spacious, elegant command post appointed with oil paintings, fine leather furniture and a small forest’s worth of hardwood.
Barely a decade removed from college, Miller is at the seat of power. His authority has grown in recent months as he engineered a leadership purge at the Department of Homeland Security, removing or reassigning the head of every immigration-related agency in seven weeks.
And his long-sought policy goals are reaching fruition. On Monday, Miller secured tighter immigration rules that can disqualify green-card applicants if they are poor or deemed likely to use public assistance, cutting off a pathway to U.S. citizenship for those immigrants who could become a burden on taxpayers, or “public charges.”
Miller’s horizon extends beyond one or even two presidential terms. He views the public charge rule as vital to his goal of reducing immigration, and he has told colleagues it will have “socially transformative effects” on American society.
“Immigration is an issue that affects all others,” Miller said, speaking in structured paragraphs. “Immigration affects our health-care system. Immigration affects our education system. Immigration affects our public safety, it affects our national security, it affects our economy and our financial system. It touches upon everything, but the goal is to create an immigration system that enhances the vibrancy, the unity, the togetherness and the strength of our society.”
This account of Miller’s role in the White House and his relationship to Trump is based on interviews with Miller and 22 current and former administration officials, nearly all of whom have worked directly with him. His colleagues speak of him with a mix of admiration, fear and derision, impressed by his single-minded determination and loyalty to the president, despite an awkward and sometimes off-putting style. Some of the same co-workers who deplore his political machinations say he can be charming and likable when he’s not angling toward an outcome.
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