Trump Promotes Stephen Miller as He Doubles Down on Extreme Agenda

Stephen Miller will be taking over as White House chief of staff beginning Monday.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social Friday afternoon, saying that “Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation. I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

Miller, previously the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, is receiving the promotion after serving in both Trump administrations. He is well-known for his hardline, xenophobic, and racist views on immigration, which led to violent and deadly mass deportation policies in Trump’s second term.

Trump’s decision to elevate Miller suggests that he is unrepentant about much of the negative attention brought by ICE’s violence even after Republicans were dealt historic losses in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Earlier this week, Miller was the target of leaks from Republicans and Trump administration officials over how his deportation plans were going too far, with even one anecdote about First Lady Melania Trump complaining to the president about people she knew being deported. Wiles reportedly tried for months to steer Trump away from Miller’s approach, according to The New York Times.

Ultimately, though, Wiles is the one on her way out. She tendered her resignation Thursday night, as Trump has partly blamed her for the GOP’s devastating election losses, Wired journalist Hugo Lowell reported. Rumors that she would be made into a scapegoat for the elections had been floating around for weeks.

In a statement posted on X, Wiles said, “Serving President Trump in the White House has been the honor of a lifetime. I’m so proud to have been a part of what we’ve accomplished together from securing our border and cutting taxes to strengthening our economy and putting America First. More than anything, I’m grateful for the extraordinary people I’ve had the privilege of working alongside. While my role may be changing, my commitment to the President and the mission never will.”

Promoting Miller now is a clear message to Democrats after their massive election victory.

The death of nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents in January caused a sea change in Americans’ thoughts on immigration, and gave Democrats the edge this November. ICE heavy-handed tactics continued, though. ICE agents have shot at least 25 people in Trump’s second term, according to the Times. On top of that, dozens of immigration detainees have died in ICE custody due to inhumane conditions encouraged by Miller.

But Trump clearly doesn’t care about any of that, and wants to double down on the most brutal part of his second term by elevating his most vile staffer, giving Miller the run of the White House. Any thoughts of Trump moderating or working with Democrats in the final two years of his presidency have been dashed by this move, and Democrats should receive the message loud and clear.

In response to Miller’s appointment, Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, who will be taking over the House Oversight Committee next year, said “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”

This story has been updated.

The U.S. is on the cusp of losing its measles elimination status.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 5,182 measles infections nationwide Friday, the highest case load of the disease that the country has experienced since 1991. Forty-five states have been affected.

But public-facing federal datasets have not kept up with state reporting. The agency has acknowledged just four measles deaths so far this year, while Pennsylvania on its own has reported six. Health agencies in New York and Wisconsin each reported at least one additional death.

Measles hasn’t been a national concern since 2000, when the long-term use of a vaccine proved so effective at minimizing risk and exposure to the disease that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared measles eradicated from the United States. That status is up for reassessment this month. If it’s determined that a singular viral strain has circulated the country for 12 months, the U.S. will no longer qualify for the label.

The virus’s dormancy has been challenged by anti-vaxers, who have opted against medicating their children in fear that vaccinations could cause autism (a thoroughly debunked conspiracy). One such conspiracist, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has refused to combat the ensuing measles outbreak with vetted science—instead, he has issued guidance that the illness can be treated by simple vitamins.

In April, Kennedy fell short of offering a full-throated endorsement of the MMR vaccine that has historically been used to treat measles, telling CBS News that his agency was focused on finding treatments for unvaccinated individuals while falsely claiming that the jab had not been “safety tested” and was not effective for long-term prevention. As of 2025, there are no known effective treatments or cures for measles other than vaccine prevention.

The return of historically eradicated diseases is thanks to a growing movement of anti-vax parents who refuse to provide their children with the same public health advantages that they received in their youth, mostly in fear of giving their children autism. The researcher who sparked that myth with a fraudulent paper lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies have proven there’s no correlation between autism and vaccines, including one study that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years.

But America’s is not the first measles response that Kennedy has bungled. Under Kennedy’s stewardship, the anti-vax nonprofit Children’s Health Defense had its own questionable history with the disease. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on Samoa in 2019, the organization spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout the nation, sending the island’s vaccination rate plummeting from the 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones. That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of five.

Democrats are eyeing investigations into some of America’s largest corporations that tried to curry favor with President Trump. 

The Washington Post reports that now that Democrats won back control of Congress, they are planning to probe powerful entities in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and the first targets could be Apple, Meta, and Elon Musk and all of his companies. 

The House is already preparing to investigate how President Trump used Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to the Post. House Democrats are also looking at Apple’s hosting of tracking apps used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and at Meta for demanding that local governments sign nondisclosure agreements regarding data centers. 

Corporate lawyers in Washington, D.C., are scrambling to meet with corporate executives to offer advice on the impending high-profile public investigations. Many firms are preparing pitches to attract Musk as a client, as he is not only the world’s richest man, but also holds billions in government contracts, has a close relationship with Trump, and led the disastrous Department of Government Efficiency initiative.  

One lawyer at a major D.C. firm told executives in a private online meeting Thursday that “this is a new era.”

“If your company is caught up in this oversight, it’s likely to be much more highly publicized,” the lawyer said, according to the Post. 

Dozens of corporations and CEOs donated to Trump’s transition fund, his inauguration fund, and his White House ballroom project. Where that once may have protected them from regulations and investigations from the Trump administration, with this new Congress, the opposite is true. Trump also made millions investing in many companies and publicly praised companies that did him favors. 

“Lawyer up,” wrote Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, the next chair of the House Oversight Committee, in a brief statement on election night. 

Want to see just how far left the United States shifted in Tuesday’s midterm elections? Look no further.

A map produced by Ground News using data from civicAPI showed just how far each U.S. county’s margin moved from the 2024 presidential election to the 2026 House vote. A whopping 94 percent of U.S. counties shifted left in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Jurisdictions in all 50 states reported an average 13-point shift toward Democratic House candidates. No state showed an overall shift toward the Republicans in the House, although there were a handful of districts that moved right.

The states that showed the largest shifts toward Democratic House candidates were New Jersey, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The states that saw the smallest leftward shifts were South Dakota, Vermont, and Oregon.

The map indicated that even in states where Democratic candidates did not win, such as West Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky, there were still heavy leftward shifts among voters.

Voters under 30 swung sharply toward the Democratic Party, according to the AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters across all 50 states. Republicans appeared to lose most—if not all—of President Donald Trump’s gains with Hispanic and Black voters in 2024. Moderate and lower income voters also turned up to support Democratic candidates.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has been pushing to build artificial intelligence data centers on public lands since he first joined President Trump’s Cabinet. A Friday report from ProPublica shows that Burgum might feel so strongly about the centers not because of worries about China or the future—but because he has somewhere between $18.1 million and $64.4 million invested in artificial intelligence companies.

Burgum’s 2026 financial disclosure document shows that the vast majority of his wealth is held with Arthur Ventures, the investment firm he co-founded. While Burgum’s Senate confirmation ethics agreement forced him to resign from Arthur Ventures, he still maintained his financial interests at the firm. According to an analysis by public lands advocacy group Save Our Parks that was shared with ProPublica, Arthur Ventures invests between $18.1 million and $64.4 million in AI companies—meaning that Burgum is pushing an unpopular policy that will personally enrich him. Burgum has blamed the mass rejection of data centers on a “foreign psyop.”

The Trump administration, of course, denies ProPublica’s reporting.

“Secretary Burgum has met his federal ethics and financial disclosure obligations,” a U.S. Department of the Interior spokesperson said. “Any suggestion that his office decisions are driven by personal investments are false and completely unsupported.”

Yet Burgum isn’t the only Trump administration member who stands to personally profit from his investments in AI and data centers. According to a ProPublica review, over 380 administration members or their spouses have investments in or other financial ties to Nvidia, 320 have ties to Alphabet, and over 240 are invested in Meta Platforms—all while the administration allows states to construct data centers and inject their technology into every level of everyday life unfettered.

“Like every other goon in this administration, Data Center Doug is in it for himself,” California Representative Jared Huffman wrote online. “He wants to cover our public lands with AI data centers that will make him and Trump’s tech buddies richer.”