President Trump announced Friday that he would name Stephen Miller, the powerful domestic policy adviser who helped drive the administration’s immigration crackdown, his new chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles after the Republicans’ massive defeat in the midterm elections.
Ms. Wiles is moving on to the president’s political operations, Mr. Trump said. But his departure and the rise of Mr. Miller will fundamentally change the circle of advisers around Mr. Trump as the White House absorbs the shock of the midterm elections.
It also signals an aggressive doubling down by the president, after the loss of Republican majorities in the House and Senate served as a rebuke to Mr. Trump’s handling of issues ranging from the economy to the war with Iran to tariffs to his push for a mid-decade redistricting effort.
“I wanted to make a change,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Florida. She did a “great job,” he said. “Sometimes in life you have to make moves,” he added.
Asked what he wanted Mr. Miller to do differently from Ms. Wiles, who he said was not going anywhere, the president replied: “Just handle things well.” »
The elimination of Republicans has further stoked tensions within the administration, with officials bracing for a series of congressional investigations led by Democrats and a shift in the West Wing and within the Cabinet.
Mr. Trump’s decision elevates to a primary role one of the most deeply ideological members of the White House, known for wielding power. Mr. Miller is one of the few people in the current West Wing who has spent years preparing for a second Trump term from an executive branch perspective, and who knows how the levers of government work. He is also one of two top West Wing staffers who were part of the first administration when the House majority flipped in 2018, prompting a series of congressional subpoenas.
People close to his views say it is likely to move the president away from his initial instinct, after Tuesday’s defeats, to seek deals with Democrats. That could mean paying even greater attention to culture war issues, such as taking a hard line on immigration and efforts to target diversity initiatives.
“Stephen is and always has been the eternal flame of the MAGA movement – putting the President’s words and policies into action,” Hunter Morgen, who worked as Mr. Miller’s aide during the President’s first term and is now a lobbyist at Ballard Partners, wrote in a text message. “Since the early days of the 2016 campaign, he has been a loyal torchbearer of the president’s agenda.”
In the short term, Mr. Miller’s priority would be the war in Iran, which was seen by the presidential base as a betrayal of the president’s campaign promises.
Mr. Miller maintains relationships with some of the key Cabinet officials involved in Mr. Trump’s top priorities, such as Attorney General Todd Blanche, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His arrival could help Mr. Hegseth, at least in the short term, because the president has heard myriad complaints about him from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Hegseth celebrated Mr. Miller’s promotion with several social media posts. “A huge CONGRATULATION,” he wrote, calling Mr. Miller “a true patriot and fighter for America First.” He followed up with a message saying “Patriots in charge” and another that included a photo of himself and Mr. Miller.
Mr. Trump, in both his private conversations and his public remarks, has not accepted responsibility for the election results.
Instead, he repeatedly lambasted Ms. Wiles and her other political advisers, insisting that he had been poorly served in the run-up to the midterm elections. He criticized Ms. Wiles in front of several people at an election watch party at East Room this week, according to people with knowledge of the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
Mr. Trump also privately criticized James Blair, Ms. Wiles’s ally, who ran the president’s foreign policy operations, people with knowledge of the comments said. And in recent months, Mr. Trump has berated Ms. Wiles in front of other staffers about his frustration that his administration has not moved more quickly to find the people he calls “leakers,” as well as the impasse in prosecuting his alleged political enemies, they said. In front of several advisors, he would accuse him of being one of the fugitives.
Ms Wiles’ allies have described her as ready to leave the role. His supporters saw his criticism of him as an attempt to shift blame to a political strategy largely driven by Mr. Trump himself. And they blamed his critics inside and outside the administration for spreading information intended to damage Mr. Trump, including stories about his daughter’s lobbying work.
In her own statement posted on social media, Ms Wiles described working for Mr Trump at the White House as “the honor of her life”.
“Even though my role is changing, my commitment to the president and the mission will never change,” she added.
Ms. Wiles, the first woman to hold the West Wing’s top job, helped guide Mr. Trump to his 2024 election victory, playing a central role in his return to power four years after his defeat by Joseph R. Biden Jr.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in early 2026. Ms Wiles remained in her role as she began treatment and recently announced she was cancer free.
Ms. Wiles came to the job after establishing a relationship with Mr. Trump and a level of trust that none of his four chiefs of staff enjoyed during his first term.
Unlike some of Mr. Trump’s previous chiefs of staff, Ms. Wiles has made clear that she does not see her job as trying to fundamentally change the president. But she tried to influence his decisions on key issues, including immigration enforcement, even if only from the sidelines, according to people familiar with her role. She pushed for the nominations of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and both were seen by many outside government as stabilizing figures.
But Mr. Trump has relied mostly on his own instincts during this term, and few advisers have engaged him in the kind of direct confrontations over policy that characterized his first administration.
Mr. Trump has publicly expressed his confidence in Ms. Wiles in recent months. But behind the scenes, there were signs that his position with the president was fragile, according to officials familiar with the dynamic.
Mr. Trump began excluding Ms. Wiles from hiring decisions, including when he chose an inexperienced television pundit to replace outgoing press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
And Mr. Trump began criticizing his chief of staff in front of other staffers, particularly over decisions he had approved, according to people familiar with his comments.
After the election, Mr. Trump made it clear to some advisers that he was unhappy with Ms. Wiles and her political team, who persuaded him to approve $400 million in spending by his super PAC to help Republicans in the midterms. The president had been reluctant to approve these expenditures and did not agree to them until September.
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